Forgotten Television: Crow Stairway to Heaven

Eric Draven (Mark Dacascos), a rock musician, is murdered along with his girlfriend Shelly Webster (Sabine Karsenti). One year later, a crow escorts Eric back to the world of the living in order for him to make things right.  Not living and not dead, Eric can spontaneously heal from nearly any wound and possesses the power of psychometry, the ability to see an object’s past.  He also has a kind of reverse psychometry, where he can force the visions of the past on to others, sort of like the Ghost Rider’s Penance Stare. Eric is reunited with Sarah (Katie Stuart), a young girl who the couple had befriended and gave refuge to when her mother was drunk.  Investigating the murder of Eric and Shelly is police detective Albrecht (Marc Gomes) who at first is unbelieving and distrustful of the resurrected Eric, but soon learns that the pair can work together to do some good.   Eric’s first order of business is to find those that killed him and Shelly and bring them to justice.  This leads to Top Dollar (John Pyper-Ferguson) and his henchmen, consisting of T-Bird (John Tench), Tin-Tin (Darcy Laurie) and Funboy (Ty Olsson) who were the ones that actually murdered Eric and Shelly.  Eric, now calling himself The Crow, easily defeats the gang, but at Sarah’s request, leaves them alive. And so begins the weekly adventures of The Crow as he attempts to put right what was wronged.

The Crow: Stairway to Heaven is a Canadian superhero action television series that aired in syndication from September 25, 1998 to May 22, 1999 and consists of 22 episodes.  The series is based on the 1994 film The Crow which in turn is based on the James O’Barr comic book of the same name. The original movie starred Brandon Lee who, near the end of shooting the movie, was fatally wounded during the filming of one of the scenes.  With rewrites, editing, usage of a stunt double and digital effects, the movie was released anyways.  The end result was a wonderfully moody atmospheric film that is visually breathtaking.  The series got some positive reviews and decent ratings, but was cancelled after one season after production company, Polygram was sold to Universal Studios.  The series ended on a cliffhanger and a television movie was planned to wrap up the loose ends, but that never materialized.

There are several movies in my life that helped me through difficult times by allowing me to escape for a couple hours into a different world.  The original Crow film is one of those.  The dark gloomy atmosphere, the witty dialogue, the well-choreographed fight scenes and the overall story of the film spoke to me at a time I needed it. For this reason, I did not watch the series when it originally premiered for fear that they would not do it justice and unfortunately, I was right. The series has none of what made the film amazing.  Maybe, it is because the first movie is held so highly in my heart, that the series was so very very disappointing.  The pilot attempted to cram the entire movie into a single episode, losing any of the subtlety that made the film great.  The acting was horrible, the script was forced and stale, the production value felt cheap and most importantly, of all the crimes they committed, the worst was the atmosphere and editing that created the visually stunning work of the film, was nonexistent.  It felt like they tried to recreate the story but left out the heart and soul and all the parts that could have made it great. The actors did look the parts and they reused some of the original music from the film, but that’s about the only good thing I can say about the series. Anyone who has read my reviews at Comic-Watch will know that I can usually find the good in even the worst shows. This series is so totally starved creatively and cinematically that I will just say you can judge for yourself, but I think your time would be better spent watching anything else.