As superhero movies burn up the box office, it’s not surprising that entertainment companies try to move it to the small screen as well. Heroes had a good first season and then fell off a cliff very quickly. No Ordinary Family isn’t good enough to be considered ordinary. So, now we are on to the newest entry, The Cape. With a bunch of mostly unknowns and Summer Glau, it’s the midseason entry from NBC. While the other TV superhero shows have mostly done away with costumes, The Cape embraces its comic book heritage. So, is it any good?

David Lyons (from the dying years of ER) is Vince Faraday, an honest cop in a corrupt city. When his best buddy Marty convinces him to jump ship on the police department to join the private policing firm Ark, his life pretty much ends. It turns out that the head of Ark is the had bad guy Chess who is using the private policing firm to take over the city and using the threat of Chess to get his private policing firm accepted in the city. Marty, of course is in on it, as Vince finds out when the local blogger/gadfly Orwell points Vince towards a cache of the bad guy’s poison. Chess forces a mask on Vince and sets him up as the real Chess and has Ark hunt him down. When a lucky break allows Vince to survive an explosion, he’s believed dead. Vince is then rescued by a troop of circus freaks who also rob places (and aren’t big fans of Chess either). Vince decides to becomes the superhero his son loved, The Cape. Vince is trained by the circus freaks and helped out by Orwell to become a hero who will take down Chess.

What’s good about the show? David Lyons isn’t bad, as the lead. Keith David as Max Malini, the leader of the circus people is really good and is the best part of the show so far. Summer Glau has a chance to be better, based on her previous work more than anything they’ve done with her in the first two episodes. The costume is also interesting, I like how they use the cape as a grabbing device and the basic costume isn’t bad.

What’s bad about the show? The rest of Faraday’s family. The son doesn’t do anything except whine that Dad’s innocent. The mom hasn’t done anything interesting yet. I’m surprised that they’ve tried to keep his family around, but I’m worried that they will get in the way of the show, more than helping out. The special effects are laughably bad in places (most noticeably the virtual chess board that Chess had and the ridiculous chess piece contacts that Chess wears). Chess is kind of silly, especially since he framed (and killed) someone who was supposed to be Chess. If he shows up anywhere as Chess, then he destroys his frame up, so his character has some issues. There’s also the Faraday issue. He’s supposed to be a dead supervillian, so he can’t let just anyone see him. And he not only needs to take down Chess, but clear his name completely before he can even think of resurrecting his life.

Overall, it has potential, but it’s yet to be seen if the show’s going to be decent or not. There was enough good to get me to keep watching, but we’ll see if they can build up a decent mythology going forward.