Review: Cat Fight! Emily VanCamp Wants to Destroy Madeleine Stowe in "Revenge."

I really wanted to like Revenge. The new ABC show is about a mysterious woman (Brothers & Sisters' Emily VanCamp) who rents a beach house in the Hamptons in order to wreak revenge on the family in the mansion next door, especially the bitchy matriarch (Madeleine Stowe).

I mean, come on! A revenge story about warring women in the Hamptons? I am so there!

There are two ways this show could've been great: as some kind of smart, twist-y noir-ish thriller — something like the brilliant new Sarah Michelle Gellar show Ringer. Either that or as an intentionally (or unintentionally) campy, over-the-top soap opera — Melrose Place, after Heather Locklear joined the cast and they turned it soapy, but before it went off the rails.

Revenge is definitely not "smart." But at least in the pilot, it's not quite campy or over-the-top enough to make it much of a guilty pleasure either.

It doesn't help that there's a lot of self-important voice-over, which makes it sound like the show is trying to go the "smart" route, but just doing it badly.

The pilot also suffers from too many flashbacks: the whole thing is framed by a flashback (which I'm fervently hoping is all clever misdirection, in which case my opinion of the show might rise a little), and it's intercut with flashbacks to different moments in both the distant and recent past. But these don't make the show seems particularly smart either: they have the effect of spelling everything out, even as they slow the pace.

Madeleine Stowe, center

Still, the show has a couple of things going for it, namely the two leads. Emily VanCamp has the same great innocent, open-faced quality she had on Brothers & Sisters, and it totally works when Emily Thorne (as in a "thorn" in someone's side) first appears on the scene. Just who is this lovely young woman? Van Camp struggles later on when she must muster up a seething "dark side" as we learn her backstory, why she's out for revenge, but hey, it's the pilot. I'm willing to give her a chance.

And as expected, Madeleine Stowe (who looks terrific at age 52) absolutely shines as the Hamptons' resident ice queen, Victoria Grayson, the woman Emily hates most of all. She's the best kind of TV villain, because while she's completely ruthlessly evil, she's also very smart. She instantly knows something is up with Emily.  

The show also has a fair amount of eye-candy, especially Joshua Bowman as Victoria's handsome son Daniel (who Emily starts dating, naturally), and Connor Paolo (the gay kid on Gossip Girl who's all grown up now). James Tupper (Men in Trees) plays Emily's supposedly dead father, appearing only in flashback in the pilot.

I hesitate to write this show off completely, because the pieces are all in place and, as I said, I'm thrilled with the premise. But if it's going to turn into something more watchable, it has its work cut out for it.  

Revenge airs Wednesdays at 10 PM, premiering September 21st