OK, so let's get the first thing right out of the way: the lead is smoking hot. When he's all weathered and down in the dumps and he has that little wisp of beard going? Schwing! Real talk, the worse things get for him the hotter he looks. It's horrible to wish pain on a character like that, I suppose, on some moral scale tangential to reality, but honestly I was kind of hoping the wife and kid would bite it so that the main character could really cut loose and brood.

That aside, how is the rest of the show? A mixed bag, but it comes out with enough points in the pro column to get an immediate Season Pass.

The thing is, I am a sucker for the big, fun, funny, silly adventure story. I've liked basically every show with that sort of ambience that I've ever encountered: Briscoe County Jr., Greatest American Hero, Sliders, Voyagers!, you name it. If the story is about someone getting drawn unexpectedly into adventure and mayhem and at least someone in the cast of characters seeming to enjoy that, I am there. So, The Cape is pretty much a gimme for me from the get-go.

That said, it's not just that I'm a pushover no matter how good or bad the show might be. There are a lot of things I consciously like about it: the swashbuckling, good-humored fearlessness of the Carnival of Crime is exactly what I look for in an adventure story. Their enthusiastic embrace of the Left-Hand Path is so incredibly refreshing. They're a group of supporting characters who do more than just leaven the melodrama: they actively oppose the viewer's expectations. The strong-man is a little person, they befriend and even mentor The Cape just as readily as they tortured him and their leader is an African-American with an Italian name, a subtle subversion made all the more delicious when taken as an allusion to the much-loved and long-departed Homicide. The carnival crew's dialogue is snappy and the actors absolutely sell their roles with gusto. The showmanship and pizazz of the characters demands the same from their cast and this cast absolutely delivers.

They aren't the only great supporting characters, though. Finally - finally - Summer Glau gets a part where she's allowed to display emotion and it turns out she's pretty good at that. The role is perhaps too obviously a borrowing of the concept of Oracle from Birds of Prey, yes, and that is pretty bothersome, but there is the potential for a great origins story there in that Orwell is a person of obvious privilege who must maintain complete anonymity. One has to wonder why, when these sorts of stories often assume an invulnerability proportional to one's wealth, there is a rich character who can suffer no acknowledgment at all of her actions. There are a couple of easy answers to that question, but I prefer to keep my predictions to myself for now.

In addition to likable supporting characters and cast, the show has a palette that I just love - all dark shadows and crimson and blue, strong comic book color schemes hidden behind smoked glass. I constantly felt like there were vivid visuals straining to escape to the light in much the same way the characters struggle in the darkness of their personal plights. The action scenes are well done, and the HD really does pay off across the varied locations and moods of the show: fights are fast and sharp, the home The Cape has left behind is lush and warm, his hideaway is appropriately grungy, Chess' personal abode is every bit as sharply angled and coldly glassed as one might want and the carnival - the carnival! - is immediately recognizable as one of the countless faded entertainments so at home in stories like this for their representation of escape, anonymity and fleeting ambition.

Seriously, I cannot get enough of that carnival. In fact, I kind of wish the show were just about them... and that's one of the show's problems.

So what don't I like? Well, for one thing, the main character. I get that he's new to this, yes. I get that. However, he isn't new to law enforcement. He isn't new to chasing bad guys and gaining access to them and finding out their plans. He isn't new to basic practices of personal security. However, as soon as he puts on the eponymous garment he kind of forgets a lot of that. I mean, c'mon, breaking into Chess' home in the middle of the night and thinking everything would go just peachy keen? If Orwell can hack his personal computer at home, why can't she hack Chess' personal computer at home? Surely, for that matter, Chess isn't so dumb as to do things like attach news stories about assassins to news stories about their intended targets, zip them together and store them on his personal hard drive... is he? Were one to say that The Cape survives the first two episodes as much by luck as anything else and shrug it off, okay, I get that, except that he seems to survive more by luck, not as much as. I'm willing to accept that he's a newbie to vigilantism, yes, but I'm not willing to accept that he's stupid. I also decry the inconsistency of the show. The last scene was great, I absolutely applaud that, but I couldn't help wondering why The Cape would go out the front door, in broad daylight, on an obviously traveled street. Why not just drop a smoke pellet and go out the back? The answer is because the scene needed him to be a little mortal, a little human, and having him walk out the front door, with the little ringing bell and everything, is a way to bind him to mundane reality in a way that served the theme of the episode overall: that The Cape is a human being like anyone else. Still, if he can drop the pellet and disappear with a room full of enemies watching, surely he can do it with one addled shopkeeper, can't he?

There are subtle signs (and some not-so-subtle) that the show is willing to sacrifice internal consistency in the name of getting a scene to happen and, I'm sorry, fixing that is what the writing room is for.

Also, just to be completely honest, the whole weepy-sad-but-I-know-he-was-good business with his family leaves me downright frigid. Yes, yes, appear to your child, we all saw that coming a mile away, but doesn't his wife deserve a word of reassurance, too? If the wife is going to use her maiden name to try to find a job because of the shame attached to her married name, why does she then explicitly use her husband's narrative to get her new job? I don't doubt that the emotions surrounding and generated by her experience would be complicated. Fair enough. That doesn't excuse denying the character something like consistency in her development, however. All I ask is that the show allow her variations in attitude and tactics to be explained somehow. I like the setup, don't get me wrong, but getting the characters into their places seemed like a lot of rough road being poorly smoothed over. I don't need to see them suffer and sweat, but I do need to see things make some rudimentary sense.

Last, did they cast the kid for his doe eyes? He's precious, don't get me wrong, and he did have the unexpected effect of making me want to give him a big hug and tell him it would all be okay, but I do hope sooner or later they're going to pay the kid to do something other than sit around and cry or I'm just going to start fast-forwarding through the family scenes like I already do all the talking-not-singing parts of Glee. Don't be like that with me, The Cape. The potential is there for 40 consistently interesting and engaging minutes; don't burn ten of them on tripe every time.