Matt Ryan as John Constantine in “Constantine.” (Quantrell Colbert/NBC)
While busy casting out my share of demons from the fall TV schedule, I took a pass on NBC’s traveling-exorcist drama “Constantine,” mostly because the spliced-together pilot episode that was shown to critics months ago didn’t look at all ready for battle. I gave it an “incomplete” grade, hoping to see more before Judgment Day arrived.
That day has come. A sometimes sharp but painfully predictable “Constantine” premieres Friday night, where it has been paired up with the return of the network’s sturdy occult/cop drama, “Grimm.” The first episode of “Constantine” has been fiddled and polished to an acceptable and even entertaining degree, but NBC did not send further episodes for review.
Which is fine, since the gist of this story is fairly plain to see — or contained within the stacks of DC Comics’s “Hellblazer,” on which the series is based.
Seeming to hew much closer to the look and feel of the comic book than the 2005 movie starring Keanu Reeves, this “Constantine” stars Matt Ryan as a saucier, sassier John Constantine, a professional exorcist who is tormented by the fact that he once damned a little girl to eternal hell, where she remains.
Constantine’s soul has also been marked for eternal damnation, but a visit from a tough-talking angel named Manny (played by “Lost’s” Harold Perrineau) gives him hope that if he doubles-down and keeps fighting off the devil’s legion, he’ll not only help save the world, he might also save his soul.
From that point, “Constantine” works within a formula somewhat like “Grimm’s” (or any other freaky-horror-sci-fi series that’s on cable right now), in which a hero blessed with special clairvoyance confronts the evil beings lurking among everyday people. The disheveled, “Columbo”-esque Constantine (because of his British accent, I’m tempted to refer to him as Doctor Whoo-ooo-ooo) is joined in his work by an apparently immortal cab driver named Chas (Charles Halford) and, in future episodes, by a character named Zed (Angelica Celaya).
Just frequently enough to minimize his yammering monologues about the netherworld, Constantine is confronted by hissing demons, who haven’t changed much in the 40 years since Linda Blair sent back her split-pea soup: same clouded eyes, same flexible joints, same matted hair. Sometimes they aren’t seen at all; in one scene, Constantine casts the demon out of a downed power line that lunges at him like a cobra. It’s silly only because the show insists it be taken so seriously.
One begins to realize what a cliche hell has become. “Constantine” thrusts us into an all-too-familiar milieu of meaningless symbols, old leather-bound books, sudden power outages, gathering storm clouds, garbled Latin and the Beast within. All that nonsense makes it hard to see any hope for redemption.
‘Grimm’
Speaking of “Grimm,” are you at all familiar with the concept of loving a TV show that you never really watch? Returning for a fourth season to its nice little perch on NBC’s Friday-night schedule, “Grimm” is a fine example of the show that’s good enough to skip.
When I do watch it, I find it relaxing to imagine I’m anyone besides a TV critic — perhaps, say, a genre-obsessed, multiple-cat owner who finds great, escapist comfort in curling up Friday nights with a lightly spooky crime procedural about a Portland police detective Nick Burkhardt (David Giuntoli), who is descended from a long line of monster-hunters.
At a passing glance, “Grimm” might seem to be the same show over and over (“Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?” with much more Fred), but it actually has a confident forward momentum that makes room for new characters and new ways to freshen up and broaden its original tale. Plus it has a fine supporting cast, especially Silas Weir Mitchell as a helpful werewolf and Russell Hornsby as the hero’s police partner. What I like about “Grimm” is that it’s one of those shows that is much better than it ever needs to be, which is certainly why it’s still on. I always make time to not-watch it, if you know what I mean.
Constantine
(one hour) premieres Friday
at 10 p.m. on NBC.
Grimm
(one hour) returns Friday
at 9 p.m. on NBC.
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