Forgotten Television: The Nine Lives of Chloe King

On her sixteenth birthday, Chloe King (Skyler Samuels) starts to experience some strange things.  She has enhanced strength, dexterity, speed and stamina, heightened senses, and retractable claws.  This troubles her, but it isn’t until she is thrown off the Coit Tower in San Francisco after being chased by a man with a scar on his face, dies and comes back to life, that she finds out why.  She is a Mai, an ancient race of supernatural beings descended from the Egyptian cat goddess Bastet, and even more than that, she is the “Uniter”, a warrior with nine lives and is said to stop the war between the Mai and humans.  Chloe finds this all out from Alek (Benjamin Stone) a schoolmate who is also Mai.  Chloe is being hunted by “the Order” a group of humans who are actively trying to destroy the Mai.  Chloe’s friends, Paul (Ki Hong Lee) and Amy (Grace Phipps) know of Chloe’s secret and are often targets of “the Order” to get to Chloe.  Chloe also begins a romantic relationship with Brian (Grey Damon), but it gets complicated for a couple of reasons.  First, the Mai cannot have intimate relations with humans, it causes pain and death, second, Brian’s father is part of the Order.  Through the season, Chloe must survive being hunted, deal with other Mai and a similar race of beings descended from the Jackal headed god, Anubis, plus navigate school, family and love all at the tender age of sixteen.

The Nine Lives of Chloe King was an American supernatural drama television series on ABC Family and based on the young adult book series of the same name written by Liz Braswell. The show premiered on June 14, 2011 and ended on August 16 of that same year being cancelled after only one season and ten episodes.  The series garnered mainly positive reviews with Metacritic giving it a 68/100 and David Hinckley with the Daily News wrote, “ABC Family wins with mix of teen romance, supernatural powers”.  The production was nominated for two Teen Choice Awards, “Choice Breakout Show” and “Choice Breakout Star” for Skyler Samuels.  It was also nominated for a Saturn Award.  A television movie tying up loose ends and resolving the cliffhanger was announced in 2013 with a title of The Nine Lives of Chloe King: Salvation, and although it would never be filmed, the script was released on September 13 of 2013.

I remember watching this when it was originally released and I liked it.  It is a fun and charming show, but definitely made for “ABC Family”.  Everything was toned down, taking a bit of the edge out of it and there are deaths and violence, but even the fighting didn’t feel authentic.  I did like Skyler as the lead, she is empathetic, good looking and connects well with the audience.  Grey Damon is also charming as the love interest and extremely charismatic and good looking.  The character dynamics within the series are what you would expect from a family show, but that isn’t to say they weren’t interesting, and the storyline was exciting and intriguing.  Overall, the show has good premises, a great cast, but fell short in some of its execution resulting in a product that was entertaining, but lacked a bit of luster.