Some of the dialogue in “Heathers,” a reimagining of the high school-set 1988 movie, is bitterly clever and darkly funny (a character says of an unattractive student, “she looks like Jim Henson got in one last puppet before he died”), but the show’s overall impact gets blunted by a one-dimensional villain, bipolar tonal shifts and out-of-touch attempts to wield identity politics like a baseball bat.
Set in the present and developed for TV by Jason Micallef (“Butter”), “Heathers” was supposed to premiere in March, but after a shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., left 17 dead, the premiere was bumped to July. That second premiere date was then canceled as Paramount Network tried to sell the show to a streaming service. Those efforts were unsuccessful.
Now several episodes of the series have been re-edited: a first-person shooter video game had its setting changed from a school to somewhere else in episode five; episodes nine and 10 were edited together and created a cliffhanger (viewers will no longer see the school blow up as it did in the movie). The series will be available for streaming via the Paramount Network app or at ParamountNetwork.com starting Monday before the cable premiere Thursday (all nine episodes will air over five consecutive nights beginning at 10 p.m. each night).
The first season of the series follows supposed nice girl Veronica Sawyer (Grace Victoria Cox, who sometimes sounds like original Veronica, Winona Ryder) and her relationships with Westerburg High’s new bad boy student, JD Dean (bland James Scully, who’s too often missing Christian Slater’s dark, psychopath vibe), and the vicious Heathers, a clique that rules the school through fear and intimidation.
When: 10 p.m. Thursday, Paramount Network.
Starring: Grace Victoria Cox.
Their leader is plus-size, politically correct bully Heather Chandler (Melanie Field), who is routinely flanked by lesbian Heather McNamara (Jasmine Mathews) and gender queer Heather Duke (Brendan Scannell), who’s a more extreme, cattier, less likable Kurt Hummel from “Glee.”
Taking characters who would usually not be the oppressors — the fat girl, an African-American girl, the gay boy — and putting them in that position is bold and potentially interesting, but it also seems out of step in the current environment.
When “Heathers” was first announced in March 2016 during the Obama presidency, these unexpected Heathers made a little more sense. In the current political climate — one report found an 86 percent increase in hate violence homicides of LGBTQ Americans in 2017; another found a 25 percent increase in racial harassment complaints in 2017 — these particular Heathers seem like a tone-deaf choice that plays into wackadoodle alt-right narratives about political correctness run amok.
Through three episodes made available for review earlier this year, featuring dialogue from the movie and a cameo by one of the movie’s stars, Shannen Doherty (“Beverly Hills, 90210”), “Heathers” proves most enjoyable in the first three quarters of its second episode when Heather Chandler is sidelined, and there’s a power vacuum among the school’s students, some of whom are vying to fill the popularity void.
“At least she’s a monster about the right things,” Veronica says of Heather Chandler, which might also be the show’s thesis statement. But a bully, is a bully, is a bully, no matter the social clique. And a one-dimensional villain is still a thinly drawn caricature, even if she doesn’t fit the pretty, mean girl stereotype. Heather Chandler is just a different stereotype.
Warning, the video contains explicit language.
To be sure, there are interesting ideas floating around in “Heathers” but surely too many at once.
Several darkly funny scenes make fun of clueless, supposedly psychologically attuned parents.
“Heathers” often mocks both the white male privilege of the school principal (Kurt Fuller), who is obsessively incredulous that overweight Heather Chandler could be popular, and the political correctness of a feminist guidance counselor (Deanna Cheng).
Episode two introduces a murder mystery plot, which steers “Heathers” into “Riverdale” territory. It’s as if the show’s writers realized the cliques and quips weren’t enough to sustain a “Heathers” series and needed an additional story engine. But then, oddly, there’s no mention of the murder mystery in episode three.
“Heathers” suffers from jarring tonal shifts. Whenever the series threatens to detour into pleasantness, the writers plunge in a knife and twist it to bring the show back to its relentlessly ugly tone. That’s daring and admirable in one sense, but it’s also frustrating as a viewer: Look, here’s something recognizably human, but wait, let’s subvert it even if that requires characters to turn on a dime in a way that’s unrealistic and makes them seem out-of-the-blue unhinged!
TV writer Rob Owen: rowen@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2582. Follow RobOwenTV on Twitter or Facebook for breaking TV news.
First Published: October 22, 2018, 1:00 p.m.