In Short:	Devil in a red tank top
Recommended:	Yes...

KINGSTON:	She thinks I’m her father. I still don’t understand why you won’t let me return Christina’s calls.
BOYD:	We want her where she is. You might accidentally say something fatherly and make her come home. Quit worrying. You’re like Tokyo worrying about the welfare of Godzilla.
	"Human Nature" (01.02)

I didn’t watch this show when it aired five years ago, and I’m not entirely sure why. I remember the ads, I recall the “Hey, it’s Marti Noxon!” Buffy-adherent online hoopla, and I am sure I intended to at least check out the premiere. But then something came up -- I don’t know, work, a date, a party -- and somehow I missed the first episode or two. And by the time I’d sourced copies of the episodes I’d missed, the show had been canceled and I figured, hey, clearly I’m not missing much. And then I probably watched Buffy DVDs, instead.

I decided to give this show a try, all thirteen episodes of it, when a discussion about MaryJanice Davidson’s Queen Betsy series led to a discussion of her half-sister, the blonde and beautiful Laura, which led – I now see inevitably – to a discussion of the angel-faced Christina Nickson (Elizabeth Harnois), daughter of The Devil -- Nickson… get it? -- and new arrival in the affluent New Jersey seaside town of Point Pleasant.

So, a teen drama set in a small, seaside tourist town, populated with impossibly beautiful youth and their still young, attractive parents. Secrets and lies and… really, videotape. Stir in the Anti-Christ, dramatically rescued from the ocean by buff and boring paragon of all the virtues Jesse (Sam Page), a determined Churchiness, a whole lot of unnatural calamity, prevalent nightmares and a fairly large dollop of crazy, and you’ve got yourself quite the entertaining supernatural soap opera.

There are more than a few recognizable faces amongst the town’s older generation: Starship Troopers’ Dina Meyer; James Morrison, Colonel McQueen from Space: Above and Beyond; Richard Burgi, familiar as the dude from The Sentinel, among much else; and Clare Carey, best known to me as inconvenient CIA analyst Kerry Johnson in the eighth season of Stargate SG-1 (who plays here a character called Sarah Parker!). Also, Warren from Buffy!

Dina Meyer is particularly good here, but the revelation for me in this show is the positively chilling performance of Melrose Place’s Grant Show (whom I had perhaps unfairly catalogued in the Stand There and Look Pretty category of actors) as a devilishly handsome and cunningly manipulative demon-type. As loyal servant of the Dark Lord, Lucas Boyd, he gets the best and funniest lines of the show (“Am I human? If you drug me, do I not… be drugged?”), and he is so very convincing as a relentless narcissist with a tortured past, so completely persuasive as he works his wiles, that anyone would find it difficult to order him to get behind thee.

As to the younger ones, our spawn of Satan has a peaches and cream perfect complexion, a sweet smile and a soulful demeanor that is at enjoyable odds with her assigned destiny. (Much like Queen Betsy’s Laura.) Christina’s foster sister, Judy (Aubrey Dollar) is witty and smart -- I like this quip, when she’s just met a new boy: “He’s too cool; I was getting banter anxiety”-- and her florid yet weirdly innocent affair with savior Jesse is… intense.

A sample exchange, from what seems like moments after they first meet:

JESSE:	How can I miss you if I don’t even know you?
CHRISTINA:	I miss you, too.
JESSE:	I can’t breathe. I don’t know what this is.

Steady on, kids.

I get why the show was canceled, I do. Having reached its 13-episode end, I am not desperate for a continuing story; I mean, it’s not like I’m about to go online and search out post-canon fanfic. But had it continued, I would have kept watching it... had it made it to a second season, I would have bought that box set, too. The cast is likeable, the storyline intriguing, the many ways in which Lucifer seeks to subvert goodness -- in this mythology, anyway -- kind of neat, and Christina’s unholy powers… pretty cool. Christina’s struggle against the blackness in her soul is fun to watch in a very Dark Willow way, and her pragmatism when it comes to vengeance and torture are very The Punisher-y. Also, they get kind of a Buffy/Angel thing happening towards the back end of the season, and I’m a sucker for forbidden love attempting to conquer all, yadda, yadda, yadda. (Even if this selfsame end of the season also sees everyone acting LIKE IDIOTS!)

Despite its attempt at a shock cliffhanger ending that just ended up leaving a bad taste in my mouth, I largely enjoyed my season long stay in the troubled town of Point Pleasant very much… to be sure, it’s a place I didn’t terribly mind leaving, but I do think it’s a shame I won’t ever get to go back for more ecclesiastical adventures involving insanely pretty and stupid people (and, of course, the Prince of Darkness).