After decades of downward pressure on actors to fit the character brief of angst-ridden youths (exhibit A: the disturbingly wrinkled stars of the original 90210), it seems inevitable that the seams would split on the casting paradigm, leaving us with even older actors playing even younger characters.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
And yet Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp (Netflix, on demand) wears this anachronism with pride, reuniting the already-too-old-when-they-filmed-it cast of the 2001 cult classic of the same name, not for a sequel, but for a prequel that stretches the metaphoric skin even further.
The original film, which starred Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce, Molly Shannon, Paul Rudd, Christopher Meloni, Bradley Cooper, Amy Poehler and others, was set on the last day at Camp Firewood. This series of eight episodes takes us back to the first day of camp, with new friendships and awkward romances aplenty.
The middle-aged cast seem even more absurdly shoehorned into their roles this time around, but there is something about the film, and its passionate nostalgia for our collective childhood summers, that helps you forgive. Summer camp is not an Australian cultural thing, but we certainly understand its language.
Even more curiously, at the time, Wet Hot American Summer was not much of a film, getting largely poor reviews and making very little money. This is a film whose long shelf life was created in the wake of its failure, when it was seized by loving fans who have never let it go.
The plot points are summer camp 101: romantic rivalry, a planned camp (in both senses) musical production and a simmering conflict with a richer, meaner camp across the lake, ruled by suave Blake McCarthy (Josh Charles).
But fear not, this isn't Meatballs or Porky's, despite the occasional, and startling, boob grope. Wet Hot American Summer is really about nostalgia. Here it's boxed up as every nostalgic summer memory that was, in truth, probably lousy, but it plays well to anyone who, wistfully, remembers the good old days.
Across the dial, and somewhat darker in tone, Bitten (FOX8, Saturday, 8.30pm) attempts to do for werewolves what True Blood did for vampires. This is an ambitious idea, and perhaps one which sits a little closer to MTV than HBO, at least in terms of its pretty cast and its greater emphasis on romance.
Laura Vandervoort plays Elena Michaels, a young woman who lives with her boyfriend Philip (Paul Greene) in Toronto and has, to some extent, turned her back on her family and her past. That wouldn't usually be a deal-breaker, except in this case the family are werewolves and her past involves an inordinate amount of howling.
Down south is Clayton, played by Greyston Holt – that rare example of an actor whose real name is so much cooler than his TV name – who is the ex-boyfriend that "bit" her into the family, so to speak. This is, then, a story of identity and inclusion, and the inevitable struggle to reconcile who we want to be and who we seem ordained to become.
But we shouldn't break it down so much. There is always a risk in over-intellectualising a television program, particularly one writ so hard from horror literature.
Dark Shadows seemed so brilliant in the 1960s because of its inventive theft of the gothic genre's top shelf – Dracula, Turn of the Screw, Frankenstein and others – but its creative offspring, including The Vampire Diaries, True Blood and Bitten, tend to play for style over substance, with simpler, more melodramatic notes, accentuated by a dose of youthful angst.
And yet, this isn't quite Wet Hot American Summer. Or even Beverly Chills 90210. Think of it more as An American Werewolf in Canada.
