I recently re-watched Point Pleasant on Chiller. The channel showed all the episodes. When I watched it in 2005, I didn't get to see all of it and the episodes I saw, I thought might be a rip off of Twin Peaks minus the quirkiness. I think I wrote my first review in 2005 in haste, for it was before I saw Last Dance, which was my favorite of the series when I watched it on Fox.
It was a show ahead of its time. It did remind me of the OC at first, but given the uprising of bad reality TV, Point Pleasant has aged well. Maybe TV needed to get worse so I could see the sophistication of the show. Christina, first washes up on shore, rescued by a life guard, who has powers of his own. The supernatural aspects show up very subtle and take a while to be known, which is the magic of this series. One doesn't know in the beginning if Christina is the daughter of the devil or maybe something else. The citizens of Point Pleasant are like the people of Twin Peaks, moral small town people up front, but very immoral down below and as the show unfolds, you begin to realize Christina has a choice of becoming good or evil, since she is the devil's daughter but has a mortal mother. Yet the people in the city are what makes Christina choose the dark side towards the end of the series. Christina has no connection of family, no mother, the father who raised her treats her like a business, giving her money and telling her she is on her own. The family who she befriends, seems to do so because Christina replaces the dead daughter, Isabelle is a very Laura Palmer household where the mom has visions and the dad drugs her. Once Christina shows that she is not normal, the family rejects her. She falls in love with Jesse, the lifeguard who saved her, but after they make love, he has a vision of her dark side and leaves her, driving away. No wonder Point Pleasant was chosen to be Christina's first playground for her evil side, everyone in the town deceives her. No one gives her love or a choice to not be evil, even her real mother, who Christina was looking for, turns on her. I think the character of Christina showed a lot of restraint before she finally lost it and turned to her morbid side.
The Twin Peaks influence probably turned me off at first, since I loved that show, but given some time and the ability to watch all the episodes (Fox only aired up to show 8, but I only caught up to show 5), it has given me a new appreciation for the show. As the episodes progress, they get more weird and interesting. One wonders how good the show would have gotten if given a second season (or even a first full season). I didn't even get to see all original 8 episodes shown on Fox in the US because the schedule for airings was constantly changed and American Idol replaced where the ninth (the episode of the series where there was a lot of character development) show should have aired. Point Pleasant was a slow moving series and needed all 13 (a great number) episodes to be seen by viewers. The psychological parts I loved came out a lot more towards the end, where Christina is using her evil powers, to have a regular "family" dinner with the people who rejected her. She is struggling to have what everyone around her has and it is done in a dark comedy style. The ending leaves you with the feeling that "evil won" and really, it is a nice twist, made even more sinister by the fact the show isn't coming back and Christina is still walking down the street with thousands of ravens behind her (one of the main symbols of the series) soon to be destroying the whole town while Boyd watches.
Another fun thing about Point Pleasant is you get to see Jon Hamm of Mad Men as a doctor turned crazy kidnapper, who offers a girl in sacrifice to Christina and Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad, who has a small role as dead girl Isabelle's boyfriend who cheated on Isabelle with her sister, Judy. I guess the casting knew these guys would be headed for greatness.
I highly recommend this series to people who like supernatural or surreal shows like Twin Peaks, Buffy, Angel or Reaper. Chiller shows the whole series and you can also buy it on DVD. You may also want to watch it for its Mad Men/Breaking Bad connections if you are curious.
It was a show ahead of its time. It did remind me of the OC at first, but given the uprising of bad reality TV, Point Pleasant has aged well. Maybe TV needed to get worse so I could see the sophistication of the show. Christina, first washes up on shore, rescued by a life guard, who has powers of his own. The supernatural aspects show up very subtle and take a while to be known, which is the magic of this series. One doesn't know in the beginning if Christina is the daughter of the devil or maybe something else. The citizens of Point Pleasant are like the people of Twin Peaks, moral small town people up front, but very immoral down below and as the show unfolds, you begin to realize Christina has a choice of becoming good or evil, since she is the devil's daughter but has a mortal mother. Yet the people in the city are what makes Christina choose the dark side towards the end of the series. Christina has no connection of family, no mother, the father who raised her treats her like a business, giving her money and telling her she is on her own. The family who she befriends, seems to do so because Christina replaces the dead daughter, Isabelle is a very Laura Palmer household where the mom has visions and the dad drugs her. Once Christina shows that she is not normal, the family rejects her. She falls in love with Jesse, the lifeguard who saved her, but after they make love, he has a vision of her dark side and leaves her, driving away. No wonder Point Pleasant was chosen to be Christina's first playground for her evil side, everyone in the town deceives her. No one gives her love or a choice to not be evil, even her real mother, who Christina was looking for, turns on her. I think the character of Christina showed a lot of restraint before she finally lost it and turned to her morbid side.
The Twin Peaks influence probably turned me off at first, since I loved that show, but given some time and the ability to watch all the episodes (Fox only aired up to show 8, but I only caught up to show 5), it has given me a new appreciation for the show. As the episodes progress, they get more weird and interesting. One wonders how good the show would have gotten if given a second season (or even a first full season). I didn't even get to see all original 8 episodes shown on Fox in the US because the schedule for airings was constantly changed and American Idol replaced where the ninth (the episode of the series where there was a lot of character development) show should have aired. Point Pleasant was a slow moving series and needed all 13 (a great number) episodes to be seen by viewers. The psychological parts I loved came out a lot more towards the end, where Christina is using her evil powers, to have a regular "family" dinner with the people who rejected her. She is struggling to have what everyone around her has and it is done in a dark comedy style. The ending leaves you with the feeling that "evil won" and really, it is a nice twist, made even more sinister by the fact the show isn't coming back and Christina is still walking down the street with thousands of ravens behind her (one of the main symbols of the series) soon to be destroying the whole town while Boyd watches.
Another fun thing about Point Pleasant is you get to see Jon Hamm of Mad Men as a doctor turned crazy kidnapper, who offers a girl in sacrifice to Christina and Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad, who has a small role as dead girl Isabelle's boyfriend who cheated on Isabelle with her sister, Judy. I guess the casting knew these guys would be headed for greatness.
I highly recommend this series to people who like supernatural or surreal shows like Twin Peaks, Buffy, Angel or Reaper. Chiller shows the whole series and you can also buy it on DVD. You may also want to watch it for its Mad Men/Breaking Bad connections if you are curious.