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Diamond in the rough
Critter sci-fi-er has cult promise, and a few ticks
By Elizabeth White
There's been endless buzz and some mystery about CBS's "Wolf Lake," which debuts tonight, and not without reason. The original pilot was gutted over the summer to accommodate an entirely new premise, as well as some new characters and a new direction for the story line, and that is usually a sign of trouble.
Yet the debut episode of "Wolf Lake" is surprisingly coherent and compelling.
The show’s new driving story line is the search by a Seattle cop, played by Lou Diamond Phillips, for his missing fiancée, a young girl named Ruby.
The trail leads to Wolf Lake, a small town in the Cascade Mountains where some of the residents shape-shift into wolves.
By the end of the first episode, the audience knows that Ruby is one of the wolves, along with several other prominent characters.
Phillips’ character, John Kanin, has only a vague idea that the town is hiding secrets about Ruby and that the wolves have a strange prominence in town life.
Add to this central mystery Ruby’s powerful family, all of whom are probably wolves, a wolf sheriff who is trying to keep his daughter from becoming a wolf, and a drug ring run by wolves, and CBS has the makings of a new cult-favorite, supernatural soap opera.
But as yet they are only the makings, not the finished product.
The debut episode is uneven, having almost as many weak scenes as strong ones. This could be because the show underwent such severe changes over the summer. Originally Phillips played a Bureau of Wildlife Management agent tracking bizarre wolf behavior in a Seattle suburb.
Or it could be because the show is creatively rudderless and is throwing everything into the new premiere to see what sticks.
If it’s the former, then the awkward scenes and jarring transitions in the debut will be worked out in a few episodes.
But if it’s the latter, then "Wolf Lake" is doomed, since few genres require the strong creative vision that science fiction does in order to succeed with audiences.
When "Wolf Lake" is at its best, the series feels like a movie. The shots are tight and cinematic, occasionally lingering over inanimate objects before moving along with a character.
The tension builds slowly until there is some small release, like the discovery of a clue by Kanin.
The challenge of the show will be to manage this well-crafted tension and overarching mystery without causing the series to either implode, as "Twin Peaks" did by its second season, or become absurd, as "The X-Files" did by its eighth season.
"Wolf Lake" has already been compared to both of those series, but those are comparisons the show doesn’t yet deserve. It simply has too many weak elements.
At its worst moments, "Wolf Lake" intersperses its mysterious elements with scenes that seem more of a homage to David Lynch and 1940s film noir than actually part of the story of "Wolf Lake." The effect is jarring, and more dangerously for a suspense series, it makes the characters seem silly.
In one such scene, a girl asks Kanin whether she’s twisted because she plays online chess with a murderer in prison. He replies, "Depends. Is he good?"
Presumably, this is to show that these two characters are dark and edgy. That part of their characters is brought out more effectively elsewhere in the pilot, as each finds the dangerous, wolf-like behavior of others sexually appealing. The dialogue just appears awkward and ridiculous in comparison.
In another such scene, a woman in a local jail is singing a sad jazz tune, accompanied on a small electronic keyboard by the sheriff, also in the jail cell.
This one seems straight out of "Twin Peaks," but without the sense of purpose that even the most confusing aspects of that show managed to maintain. It’s a moment that is weird for the sake of being weird, not a good approach if CBS wants to win over science fiction fans.
And ultimately that’s who "Wolf Lake" is going to attract. The show is up against heavyweights on the other two networks, "NYPD Blue" on ABC and "Law and Order" on NBC. Those two will probably garner most of the mainstream audience.
Some extra viewers might wander over to "Wolf Lake" as a refreshing change from the serious and topical dramas that currently dominate the primetime schedules, especially considering "Wolf Lake’s" lead-in, "The Amazing Race."
Reality viewers have already shown a tendency to break with traditional programming, and in its best moments, that’s exactly what "Wolf Lake" does too.
September 19, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
-Elizabeth White is a staff writer for Media Life.
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