"The Secret Circle" SnapCap: Come On, Baby. Light My (Car On) Fire!

The Secret Circle is the CW's latest entry into TV's supernatural sweepstakes. Based on a book by the author of The Vampire Diaries and executive produced by out Kevin Williamson, the network hopes to capture the same magic again that propelled TVD into a hit.

Our protagonist Cassie (Britt Robertson), having been orphaned when her mother Amelia is magicked to death in a fire by a dastardly stranger, moves to a seaside town to live with her grandmother Jane (Ashley Crow), who we can tell is a “free spirit” by her unruly mane of curly locks and her vast assortment of jaunty scarves. Cassie has meet-cutes with the rest of the teenage cast except for neighbor Nick (Louis Hunter), who instead ups the creep factor by staring at Cassie in her bedroom from his house.

After Faye Chamberlain (Phoebe Tonkin) proves to the group that Cassie's a witch by setting Cassie's car on fire with her brain (Fayey's, not Cassie's which she needs), the group takes Cassie to an abandoned house where they all come out of the broom closet. Yep, they're all witches and Cassie is too, each of them descended from one of six witch families dating back to the 1690s. Without Cassie all they can do is lame spells like opening curtains remotely (as demonstrated earlier by creepy Nick) but with her they're a complete circle; their power is magnified but potentially uncontrollable.

Everyone (except Faye) wants Cassie to help them “bind” their magic. Cassie understandably can't deal and bails but Adam (Thomas Dekker) chases after her and pops her magical cherry by floating a few hundred water droplets in the forest with her. This allows for the inevitable “magic equals sex” moment, with Adam's girlfriend Diana (Shelly Henning) getting jealous that Adam did magic with another girl.

But did they have protection?

Faye, intoxicated with her newly heightened powers, calls up a storm but quickly loses control of it. Cassie dispels the storm but still wants nothing to do with magic. That is, until she finds her mother's hidden grimoire and a letter from Mom telling Cassie of the incredible power she possesses ... and the danger she faces because of it.

But it's not just the younger generation that's filled with drama and intrigue. Along the way Cassie meets Charles Meade (Gale Harold), Diana's father and, unbeknownst to Cassie, the man who murdered her mother; Dawn Chamberlain (Natasha Henstridge), Faye's mother and the high school principal; and Ethan Conant (Adam Harrington), Adam's alcoholic father who injects a pseudo-incestuous vibe into the proceedings by telling Cassie that he and her mother were destined to be together, as are Adam and Cassie.

Although Dawn assures Cassie's gran that there's no way the children could be practicing witchcraft, she and Charles are deep into a conspiracy, which presumably is the reason Charles killed Amelia and why he magically half-drowned Ethan on dry land as a warning to keep his mouth shut.

So how does the episode rate on the AfterElton.com SnapCap scale? Let's find out.

Beefcake

The cast is absolutely dripping with man-candy, including Gale Harold as the dapper yet sinister Charles Meade, Adam Harrington as luscious lush Ethan Conant, Thomas Dekker as the romantically conflicted Adam Conant and Louis Hunter as Peeping-Tom-in-training Nick Armstrong. But the show is going to need to step up the skin if it expects to get a higher beefcake rating. Three seconds of an open-shirted twinkish Nick standing at his window is not going to cut it.

Heart/Drama

They may be a circle, but the shape of the episode is triangles, with Adam struggling early with his attraction to Cassie while trying to stay true to girlfriend of three years Diana. There's also at least one triangle filed under “Old Business” involving Charles, Ethan and Cassie's mother Amelia. Sure, Amelia's dead, but this is a supernatural series and death is not necessarily a barrier to love.

AfterElton Bait

Come on, a show starring gay faves Gale Harold and Thomas Dekker? Of course the debut is going to score through the roof. Unfortunately despite the presence of Kevin Williamson there is no gay character currently slated to appear. The whole “secretly witches as closeted gays” metaphor was played out by Bewitched in the 1970s so unless there's some rapid development in this arena expect ratings to plunge precipitously.

Thomas Dekker wondering if this show will finally make him a heartthrob

Humor

It's a show about a teenage witch coven that's played dead serious. It's hilarious.

Production Values/Acting

For a supernatural show the premiere was relatively light on special effects. The one big effects scene, involving hundreds of floating water droplets, looked pretty but reminded me a bit too much of Twilight and its twinkly vampires.

From an acting standpoint everyone was competent with no real standouts, with the exception of Phoebe Tonkin as Faye Chamberlain. She's been cast in the obligatory bad girl role and chews the scenery with aplomb. Especially enjoyable was her rip-the-Band-Aid™-off moment when she tells Cassie they're all witches (“Oh for god's sake, spit it out! You're a witch. A full-blooded 100% witch. We all are. There, done!”) and her deflation of coven leader Diana's attempt at badassery: “Did you wanna try that again? Because I didn't quite buy it; did you?” Faye is definitely putting the “B” in “witch” and I'm loving her for it.

Now it's your turn. What did you think of The Secret Circle?