A&E's "Damien" (Season 1)

[Luke B.]

It's getting better, oh I can't wait to see next episode.
Loving the whole Damien and Ann thing. I hope both of them survive at the end of the series.

[Show spoiler]loved how that a**hole died in the last episode, sliced

[Luke B.]

Why Ann did that

[Show spoiler]cut on her 666 mark

on this week's episode?

[Luke B.]

Anyone here watching it too?
Loving it, every episode gets better and better.

[djariya]

Originally Posted by Luke B.

Anyone here watching it too?
Loving it, every episode gets better and better.

I've kind of enjoyed it so far. Have seen 3 of the 4 episodes. Barbara Hershey has been great.

However, the ratings have been pretty abysmal following Bates Motel.

It got terrible reviews before it aired and I think that scared off a lot of potential viewers.

[AnamorphicWidescreen]

Big fan of the Omen films (the original and several of the sequels, and the 2006 re-make), though obviously the original '76 film is the best; this is a great example of why the '70's were probably the best decade for horror cinema.

Wasn't sure how I would like a modern TV series, but I decided to give it a try. And, I really enjoyed the first episode - excellent storyline, and I liked how they incorporated elements from the '76 film (including flash-backs & pictures), while still retaining some original elements.

Looking forward to seeing the rest of the episodes. And, if it gets cancelled, so be it - I'll stick with this through the end.

That all being said, the timeline is completely off here - I agree with this post:

Originally Posted by SlayersCouncil

I've been sick this week so I was fortunate enough to watch the original movie right before watching this. They do a great job connecting it to the first movie (ignoring all sequels). The only thing off from the continuity is that The Omen (1976) has Damien's birthday as June 6, 1970 whereas this show has the story start on his 30th birthday. Unless this show takes place in the year 2000, they are taking liberties with the dates. Judging by the technology shown, I doubt it is supposed to be 2000. I can understand why they played with the timeline though; the TV Damien needs to be 30 to

[Show spoiler]coincide with the comparisons to Jesus for his role of the Antichrist.

Exactly. In the 1976 film, IIRC Damien is celebrating his 5th birthday in the opening scene (so I guess the movie takes place the year before it was released, which makes sense). So, he would be 30 in 2000, and 46 in 2016. Since everyone was using I-phones in this series, the show must take place either now or sometime in the last several years - not the early 200X's. So, this doesn't make sense.

That being said, suspension of disbelief is something that is important in order to enjoy movies/TV shows. So, I'll let this pass...

[McCrutchy]

Originally Posted by duggie walker

Thought this was absolutely dreadful. I kind-of hate shows like this and Lucifer that are trying to recast Satan (!) as a guy we should be cheering for but there might have been some mileage in Damien very slowly figuring out who and what he is. Instead, they compressed it all into one episode and threw in a couple of lame deaths to boot. Damien looks like a GQ model and so quick to believe all the gobbledygook being thrown his way that he comes off like an imbecile.

I haven't watched this series, and the reason why is sort of outlined by Duggie above. I do find the concept of an open-ended series where Satan or the Antichrist is the main character very strange, and not in an interesting way. I mean, I'm far from very religious, but it seems bizarre to want to devote time and energy into possibly years of television where at the end, you can already conceive of what's going to happen, anyway, because this character's destiny and nature are already decided. Incidentally, the same goes for shows with God or Jesus Christ as a protagonist, too. I mean, who (aside from the deeply religious) would really commit to watching a multi-episode, multi-season, multi-year television show that literally has Jesus Christ as its main character? There's a sort of similar lack of enthusiasm there, I think, which is one of the reasons why that hasn't happened already.

These kinds of archetypes are much better suited to feature-length films and miniseries, which are, by nature, self-contained. But serialized television? I'm not so sure that makes sense to people, psychologically.

I certainly think that, if you wanted to make it work, you would need a well-respected and very, very brilliant actor playing Satan (or Damien), which doesn't seem to be the case, here. Because we all know we'd watch an HBO series with Al Pacino as "John Milton", living it up, winning legal battles in court, and crushing all kinds of human and supernatural p u s s y, while continually trying to f**k over the "absentee landlord" (his words) and bring about the End of Days (SPOILER ALERT: That series would end by having Christopher Walken (as Gabriel) show up and beat the shit out of Pacino).

Having said that, though, I kind of want to see what Barbara Hershey is up to in this...IF it comes to BD, perhaps I will buy it.

[Clark Kent]

The actor playing Damien just isn't convincing or intimidating enough in his role. It's hard for a show to overcome its main character. The most interesting character is Ann.

[AnamorphicWidescreen]

Well, to be fair in this series Damien isn't supposed to start off as a "bad guy". He really doesn't know that he's "evil" at the beginning of the series.

This is unlike the film franchise, where as time went on Damien is taken over by "the dark side" with each successive film, which culminated in the last movie where he was an adult (played by Sam Neill).

I like the fact that this series ignores the sequels & re-boot, and just uses the original '76 film as part of the direct continuity - despite the fact that this doesn't make sense time-wise....of course, the film sequels didn't make sense from a time-wise standpoint, either.

[Dunemoon]

Originally Posted by AnamorphicWidescreen

Well, to be fair in this series Damien isn't supposed to start off as a "bad guy". He really doesn't know that he's "evil" at the beginning of the series.

This is unlike the film franchise, where as time went on Damien is taken over by "the dark side" with each successive film, which culminated in the last movie where he was an adult (played by Sam Neill).

I like the fact that this series ignores the sequels & re-boot, and just uses the original '76 film as part of the direct continuity - despite the fact that this doesn't make sense time-wise....of course, the film sequels didn't make sense from a time-wise standpoint, either.

Think it just ignores III onwards. I mind a reference to the school incident from II in a recent episode.

[McCrutchy]

Originally Posted by AnamorphicWidescreen

Well, to be fair in this series Damien isn't supposed to start off as a "bad guy". He really doesn't know that he's "evil" at the beginning of the series.

This is unlike the film franchise, where as time went on Damien is taken over by "the dark side" with each successive film, which culminated in the last movie where he was an adult (played by Sam Neill).

I like the fact that this series ignores the sequels & re-boot, and just uses the original '76 film as part of the direct continuity - despite the fact that this doesn't make sense time-wise....of course, the film sequels didn't make sense from a time-wise standpoint, either.

But the larger point still stands that you cannot have an Antichrist who is not, ultimately, the Antichrist. That's why it doesn't work to form a long-running series around such a character, unless you have an actor who can balance the role as such that the audience is actually cheering for the Antichrist, which is a very tall order. You could do it with a human, or even a demon or an archangel, because all of these characters, as far as the public at large is concerned, have capacity for change. But universally-defined characters like God and Satan are very poor choices for serialized television, outside of supporting roles.

If the people running this show had said "Hey, let's do a 13-episode miniseries on how Damien becomes the Antichrist", then right away, that's far more interesting, because then you know the creators are going to acknowledge (but not necessarily show) Damien's fate. Here, in an open-ended series, there is a high chance that you would never get to that in a satisfactory way, and asking people to keep watching, possibly for years, when they already know that you cannot have a Damien who is not the Antichrist, well, that doesn't seem very smart to me.

[Luke B.]

What a finale, I hope A&E renew it for season 2.
Loved how the episode ended and all the things Rutledge said to the nun.

[AnamorphicWidescreen]

Amazing finale - especially the final scene

[Show spoiler]when Damien brought that woman (his friend) back to life after she was killed by completely giving his "soul" to the devil. Interesting, since my take on this was that he was committing an almost selfless act by bringing her back to life - but, in so doing committed an ultimately evil act by embracing the darkness - kind of a contradiction, in a sense.

This is pretty much the culmination of what has been going on during the entire series with this character - i.e., he's been trying to resist becoming "evil" but at the same time has been unable to resist the forces that are out of his control.

[Show spoiler]The scene immediately after the woman came back to life & everyone bowed to Damien - including the policeman was amazing - it just showed that everyone was really buying into Damien being "the savior"... even someone who had previously been going against him. Sublime.

[ChiefSequatchie]

Damien has been cancelled after One Season at A&E

.

[AnamorphicWidescreen]

Too bad. But, the first season was awesome, and did have an ending - of sorts. I will have to go back & watch the series again at some point.

[Dunemoon]

Oh well. Liked the show but it did suffer from the heavy Ontario / Canadian accents & undisguised Toronto location.

[Michael1989]

The final episode was great. But most of the rest I just wasn't fussed about. Not too surprised it's been cancelled

[4EverJohnnyBoy]

Very disappointed that A&E gave "Damien" the ax after an awesome debut season. Sure it had a couple of hiccups here and there but ultimately I found it to be engaging and creepy. A&E really f*cked up here with this decision. With "Bates Motel" on the way out after next season, they had a perfect opportunity here to fashion "Damien" as the continued horror flavor on their network. They tapped into the fan base with 'Bates' and renewing "Damien" for future seasons would have ensured we'd return to watch. Sadly A&E clearly has no vision and would rather devote more time and energy to airing those bunch of homophobic bigots on "Duck Dynasty." I suppose the powers that be are fine being branded a network for imbeciles. I know I never watched their channel until 'Bates' came along. Big mistake A&E, after 'Bates' wraps you'll be losing a huge community of loyal viewers! Furthermore, "Damien" would have done so much better ratings-wise had they advertised the show properly. SO many horror fans I know and casual fans had no idea the show even existed until I told them. I suppose we won't be getting a bluray release either, much like we never got season 1 of "Constantine" (a show I'm hoping STILL finds new life on CW now given the introduction of mysticism & the title character's appearance and continued referenced on "Arrow.")

It's doubtful, but I'd love to see the series picked up for season 2 elsewhere. Would y'all watch season 2 and beyond if we were lucky enough to have "Damien" resurrected?

[Braktastic]

I guess it isn't all for you, Damien.

[EPlay]

Originally Posted by 4EverJohnnyBoy

It's doubtful, but I'd love to see the series picked up for season 2 elsewhere. Would y'all watch season 2 and beyond if we were lucky enough to have "Damien" resurrected?

Absolutely! Disappointed, but not surprised because of the ratings. I've lost so many shows because of ratings -- wish more people had my preferences!!

[Luke B.]

Very disappointed, loved season 1.
I hope some other network or Netflix pick this up, I really want a season 2.