My Review of The Secret Circle 1.01- Pilot

As this is the first episode, I'll mainly talk about the characters.  So here we go....

I have to say that I was really looking forward to the pilot and it did not disappoint.  I did read the books over the summer and I like the fact that they kept the characters mostly true to the books while not slavishly imitating them.  I approve of that.

Our main character is Cassie Blake, played by Britt Robertson from Life Unexpected.  And she did a good job.  Cassie seems to be a sweet girl and is totally clueless about her heritage.  And that last part was on purpose because he mother (played by Emily Holmes [Taken, Stargate SG-1, Supernatural, etc.]) wanted it that way.  Does that girl have power, or does she have power?!?  Between making the fire in her car bigger (if you can believe Faye) to floating a ton of water droplets to ending a fairly massive storm, she has power.  As for her attraction to Adam, that is so not a good thing.

Next, (since I just mentioned him) is Adam, played by Thomas Dekker from Heroes and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.  Nice guy, totally cute, but going to be a serious problem.  He is dating Diana who was the first person to befriend Cassie.  This could be awkward.  And if you believe his dad (played by Adam Harrington [Queer As Folk]), Adam and Cassie are meant to be together.  Well, he gets points for helping her out of the car, putting out the fire, and helping her to realize her potential.  Which is followed by losing points for the attempted kiss.  Well, nobody's perfect.

Next we have Diana, played by Shelley Hennig (don't know her from anything else).  She is nominally in charge of the group (the Circle) and seems to be in constant conflict with Faye.  She does need to work on her threats.  It just didn't work well.  Of course the fact that Faye was totally unfazed probably didn't help.  And is she totally clueless about the sparks flying between Adam and Cassie?  That could be really bad....

And Faye, our resident bad girl played by Phoebe Tonkin.  She is a witch in more ways than one (if you catch my drift), but she needs to work on the bad girl thing.  She strikes me as more of a spoiled, pampered princess than a bad girl.  She also has serious impulse control issues (the storm and the fire in Cassie's car) and needs to learn the meaning of the word "diplomacy".  I do think I could get to really like her.  But I could also go the completely opposite direction.  Depends on how they write her.

To complete the Circle, we have Melissa (played by Jessica Parker Kennedy [Smallville]) who seems to be a hanger on to Faye and Nick (played by Louis Hunter).  Neither is particularly fleshed out except for Nick liking to peek in on girls changing.  BTW, nice chest.  Glad to see the evidence of working out.  Now we just need to work on the hair....  :-)

Cassie's grandmother is played by Ashley Crow (Heroes).  She so doesn't want the kids playing with magic given the accident that killed several of the kids parents 16 years ago.

Our villains (well, seeming villains anyway) are Diana's father, played by Gale Harold (Desperate Housewives and Queer as Folk) who killed Cassie's mom in order to bring Cassie to the Circle and Faye's mom and the principal of the local high school, played by Natasha Henstridge.  Diana's dad is more overtly evil and slightly creepy while Faye's mom shows us that the apple truly does not fall far from the tree.

Until next week!