'RIVERDALE' REVIEW.......ANDY HARDY MEETS A RANDY ARCHIE.......

Riverdale (2017) Season 1, Episode 1  -  The BQ normally wouldn't bother with another Teen Noir series pumped out by the CW network, whose target demographic falls about 200 years younger than than us......except that this one was Frankensteined into existence from the Archie comic books that date back to before even we were born.....1941. What can we say.....we took an interest.

            The Archie comics, way back when, were introduced to compete with MGM's beloved, sweetly All-American "Andy Hardy" movies.....a series of cheaply made family comedies in which the irrepressible Andy (Mickey Rooney) comically navigates a studio sanitized adolescence under the stern but benevolent guidance of his father, the formidably wise Judge Hardy (Lewis Stone). Since MGM used the Hardy series as on-the-job training for rising starlets like Judy Garland and Lana Turner, the "Archie" creators fashioned their own starlets to beguile their Andy Hardy clone, Archie Anderson......the adorable blonde-next-door Betty and the vampy, dark-haired maneater Veronica. Along with a host of other apple pie characters living in apple pie Riverdale, the Archie crew traipsed through the decades, establishing themselves as pop culture icons.

           As Archie and friends moved through more unsettled turbulent times, liberties and assorted re-inventions were taken to freshen up the franchise.....at one point the gang battled a zombie apocalypse, (When in doubt, always trot out generous crowds of shuffling corpses....what the hell, they invaded 'Pride and Prejudice',  so why not Archie?)

           So we're not here to begrudge the CW for transforming the once sunny universe of Archie into a forboding, hormonal 'Twin Peaks in which Arch, Betty, Veronica and company are all roiled by a schoolmate's mysterious death.  In fact, we don't mind the network's  dedication to noir it up a little, They periodically interrupt the angst by sprinkling the actors' lines with rapid fire pop culture bon mots that sound stolen out of Lauren Graham's 'Gilmore Girls" dialogue. .Archie's once blazing red hair,to fit the tone of the piece,  seems ten shades darker now....and he has little time for Betty or Veronica, what with pursuing his twin ambitions of football hero and pop star while carrying on an affair with one of his teachers. 

          What we liked the most....in no particular order.....Archie's teacher/hottie/lover wears those ridiculous huge fake glasses that Hollywood used to put on 1950's starlets.....in anticipation of the scene in which she'd eventually take them off, prompting the leading man to gasp in orgasmic joy, "Why Miss So-and-So! You're beautiful!"........a sure sign of Riverdale's loss of innocence, the closing of the town's drive-in movie theater.......Archie's songwriting aspirations squelched, derided and brutally dismissed Simon Cowell-style......by.Josie and The Pussycats.  Chin up, Archie... I'm almost certain the writers will concoct a new love affair for you....possibly with Sabrina the Teenage Witch or Capser the Friendly Ghost.   BQ can't imagine becoming a regular viewer of this show....but on the first episode, we'll liberally coat it with 2 & 1/2 bottles of Red hair dye....**1/2.