I started watching Point Pleasant after it was already cancelled, being shown it by someone who had the show on DVD. Of course you know you're set up for disappointment trying out a show you know was doomed from the start, but the premise seemed worth it. FOX only aired the first eight of the thirteen episodes made, abandoning the show without giving the viewers a decent ending. On the boxset though, and with current reruns, you can watch the remaining episodes as well, giving light to a quite surprising ending.
Point Pleasant starts when Christina washes up on shore after a heavy storm. She ends up staying at one of Point Pleasant families' house, trying to find out who she is and what happened to her mother, who grew up in the town. Slowly the plot unfolds as Christina is troubled by her strengthening powers which seem to point to her evil destiny and she struggles to decide between her fate and her wish to be good. Her presence has a disturbing effect on the people around her, turning the quiet, idyllic coastal town into a hub of lies, deceit and lust.
While the show has a very heavy religious theme, it is more like a Sunset Beach than Seventh Heaven.What drew me in was it's dark, Gothic feel and sense of pending doom combined with the back-stabbing, cheating, secretive people of Point Pleasant. I liked that it was exactly those awful qualities humanity possesses that taunted with Christina's inborn evil, teasing and drawing it out. While a show with such a theme could so easily come across as preachy and an advertisement for being a goody-two-shoes, it never seems to tell you "Hey, look at these people, they're despicable and they're exactly what you should avoid to be." It glamorizes the darker side of being human and giving in to your worst qualities just like a soap would do, making Point Pleasant not only edge-of-your-seat material, but also highly entertaining.
It's said that just that, the ridiculous character relations where what made the audience dwindle. But I don't see why, when most of them will have been drawn to it because of it's connections with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Tru Calling. It was co-created by Marti Noxon, who wrote some of the more soap-opera like BtVS episodes, so I would have thought that that should not have been a problem. It's a shame the show got cancelled because instead of rushing to an ending it had potential to become something really interesting. I would have liked to have seen where they could take it, either to see what happens after Christina's decision, or to give it some more time before she had to make a choice.
(Does this image remind you of an iconic cancelled T.V. Show? No, me neither.. Up next week: Twin Peaks!)
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