By James Cannell
The Purge is an excellent theory that, if it were real, would provide the perfect opportunity to hop on a plane, fly to New Orleans, visit the USA Network studios and torch any and all remnants of this pitiful excuse for a show.
It is not all bad, thanks to the pitiful acting and lousy writing, you will most likely have to leave the room out of fear of wetting yourself with laughter rather than fear.
If you hold back on the laughs, the premise of the show, much like the movies, is a genuinely interesting concept that deals with social class, corruption and human morality.
The idea of having 12 hours to purge yourself of any hatred or anger genuinely gives the audience a chance for self-reflection and to question if “you would purge?”
However, after watching this show, the answer is unarguably yes, maybe, then I would feel better about the ten hours of my life that I wasted pouring into this show.
It is hard to tell whether it is the acting, the writing or the directing that make The Purge an inexcusable train wreckage of a movie, but what does it matter? Because at this point there is now a burning train wreck of a show with all of its cast and crew all trapped inside.
There were so many carriages full of insignificance and pointlessness that the show was bound to fall off the rails. Unfortunately no-one would mourn its loss.
The predictability of the storyline serves only for perhaps a good drinking game, or maybe a group betting circle for predictions on where the story will go.
In the latter case, everyone would have lost their money on the big twist at the end. Writer James DeMonaco’s attempt to tie the multiple character threads together might as well have been plucked from a magician’s top hat, after pulling a white rabbit simply wouldn’t suffice.
Somehow despite all of this, the show’s new season premiered on October 15, only 16 days before Halloween and yet USA Network is still trying to scare us with terrifyingly awful TV.
But it is not just the network that should be scared, the premier for the first season raked in a solid 1.39 million live viewers according to ShowBizzDaily.
However, the second season only gained 0.61 million and the most recent gained only 0.58 million. It’s fair to say that James DeMoncaco’s The Purge might crash and burn sooner than he had hoped.
