Pilot Review: Power

Power (Starz)
Premiered June 7 at 9pm

There’s a certain sense of having seen shows before when watching some pilots. “Power” tells the story of a man who made it big after being born with nothing and is now so embroiled in criminal activity that it’s impossible to turn back, even if he was ready to give up all his fortune. In order to understand just who James “Ghost” St. Patrick is, the pilot episode provides some helpful moments that demonstrate his character. He strolls into his nightclub with pride and discusses how it was always his dream to own a nightclub. He acts politely with his employees but also demands the best from them. He comes down to the basement to assist in the torturing of someone who was wronged him, and then opts for the questionably effective solution of shooting him in the head, something meant to intimidate him but whose impact is lost because only he, the dead man, would have been intimidated by him. The show drops another bomb at the end of the episode which was highly predictable – that the girl Ghost used to date in high school who just happened to pop up again is in fact working on a task force aimed at taking down his number one business partner. The twist, and one which is hard to take seriously, is that she unknowingly stumbled into his nightclub and doesn’t realize that he is the man she’s looking for. The show’s opening credits demonstrate a certain style and tone, and that’s just about the only thing that sets this otherwise rather ordinary and trite show apart from the rest.

How will it work as a series? The danger is only going to intensify as tensions rise, and someone is surely going to get hurt before long. I would hope that the world’s brightest agent, Angela Valdes, catches on to Ghost’s complicity soon, and that’s sure to create some serious and potentially life-threatening drama.
How long will it last? This pilot was available on Twitter for a full week before it actually aired on television, something that didn’t work so well for “Halt and Catch Fire” one week earlier, but it may have done the trick here. Starz messed up by renewing its two previous would-be powerhouses before they premiered, ending them both after a second season, and I think they might hit it right if they find the audience and then decide to renew it.

C-