4/5 Something Wicked Has Washed Ashore
  by prydain16 (USA)
**MAY CONTAIN SLIGHT SPOILERS*

"Point Pleasant" is a gothic soap opera created by Marti Noxon, best known as the woman who writes great depressing stories on The WB's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". I am a huge fan of "Buffy" and "Angel", but I personally enjoy "Point Pleasant" better.

Now don't get me wrong. This show has serious problems, it's biggest one being that the pilot was specially designed to best ensure a pickup by FOX. It has many elements of "The OC" and FOX was right in thinking it would work best with "The OC" compared to the other shows on their schedule.

"Point Pleasant" has loads of potential. Everything is there. A great premise, capable actors, beautiful locations, character backstories, everything that was there could have become a huge ongoing battle between good and evil, with the forces of heaven and hell battling on Earth. And I do believe that's what it would have become if the writers were able to run with it.

What 13 episodes there are, however, are still good even with their faults. The actors aren't exactly award-winners, but they get the job done quite nicely. Elisabeth Harnois, our protaganist, is the perfect choice for the daughter of Satan and a God-fearing woman. She's beautiful, and usually angelic but can become overcome with her hellborn powers in an instant. Harnois is good at instant transitions and I love the scenes where her character knows that she's too weak to drown her evil nature but doesn't know what to do. Anyway, the series opens up on Point Pleasant, New Jersey, although we're not sure if this is Point Pleasant or the town of Point Pleasant Beach. There's a difference. But it's a nice day with hot girls sunbathing on the beach, but an otherwordly storm quickly gathers and runs everyone off the beach. Jesse, a young lifeguard, spots something floating in the ocean and swims out. It's Christina. He takes her to the Kramers since the roads are closed so the doctor can look at her.
Soon Christina is living with the Kramers, and befriends their daughter Judy, whose older sister died years earlier. Her mother still has not gotten over it.

The show begins to shed its allusions of "The OC" immediately, although it does not completely do so until about the fifth episode. We see the characters evolve. The town whore soon stops her ways and tries to make things right, the love triangles become actually important to the actual story, etc. The series uses LOTS of symbolism and is very, very smart with it, proving that it is not the shallow waste of time people claim it to be.
The character relationships and the things that happen are important to whether the townspeople will be on the side of evil or the side of good. Judy's mother realizes that she is not crazy like people believe, but she has a connection with the spirit world and may be psychic. We also discover that Jesse died as a child but came back, and he is destined to kill Christina, the Antichrist, even though they have an unbearable attraction for one another. This adds much flavor and promise to the show, as Christina does not WANT to be evil and tries fighting it, yet people keep having visions of what she's destined to do to the town, and it's not pleasant. (Pun not intended.)

As different as the two shows are, "Point Pleasant" could be compared to "Dark Shadows". Both are a part of an extremely rare breed. How many gothic/horror soaps appear on television? Not many at all. "Dark Shadows", both the 60s and 90s versions, are also favorites of mine. And the short-lived CBS horror drama "American Gothic" was similar in style to "Point Pleasant", so if you like those shows you might want to check out "Point Pleasant".

Other things I'd like to point out is the EXCELLENT music used in the opening title sequence. It was written by Danny Elfman, who also did the "Desperate Housewives" theme song and has done nearly every Tim Burton film. The music used throughout the show, while not written by Elfman, is also good and sets up the atmosphere nicely. The filmwork is also nice, and looks great in widescreen, and a blue film is used quite a bit and it can be effective.

Overall the show is good, but it's no surprise many "Buffy" fans were displeased, because the two shows are completely different. However, if you are into dark, religious themed shows and movies or you just like creepy supernatural adventures, "Point Pleasant" is definitely worth a buy or rent.

5/5 Cancelled way too soon!!!
  by Buffy
"Point Pleasant" was just another one of the wonderful, original shows FOX is known for--known for introducing and then barely giving a chance before cancellation, i.e. "Wonderfalls", "Firefly", "John Doe", "Tru Calling". This show got better and better with each episode and had me hooked, even though there weren't nearly enough episodes. Unfortunately, FOX decided to cancel it before we could see the 'scariest episode yet' that was advertised. What a shame. I was hoping that it would be released on DVD so that I could watch the episodes over again and see the ones that were never aired for the first time. This show was clever and inventive. It had mystery, horror, interesting relationships and great chemistry between the main teenage characters. Grant Show also did a wonderful job of playing the show's villian. I hope this show does well on DVD. I'm definitely looking forward to the release of this DVD set.

5/5 "She is the child of Darkness..."
  by
In this compelling gothic, modern-day comedy/thriller television show, Christina (the child of the devil and a mortal woman) comes to Point Pleasant, New Jersey to search for her mother (whom she thinks abandoned her). Christina soon discovers her true identity as the devil's own child. With this discovery also comes Christina's new ability to make people and events act on her behalf. It is through the love of the Kramers, however, that Christina's good side is strenghtened as her evil side awakens. Now it's an all-out battle between good and evil. As Boyd, a once mortal man-turned devil's advocate, says of Christina and the world, "...she will bring it to it's knees."
CHARACTERS (contains a few spoilers!):
CHRISTINA NICKSON (played by Elisabeth Harnois)- Devil's daughter
BEN KRAMER (Richard Burgi)- Meg's husband; local doctor; takes Christina in
MEG KRAMER (Susan Walters)- Ben's wife; has delusions due to Isabelle's death; can see the future becasue of her detachment to reality
JUDY KRAMER (Aubrey Dollar)- Ben and Meg's daughter; becomes like a sister to Christina
ISABELLE KRAMER (unknown)- The late eldest daughter of Ben and Meg; died in a surfing accident
JESSE PARKER (Samuel Page, a.k.a. Sam Page)- Christina's love intrest; rescued Christina when she washes ashore on Point Pleasant
PAULA HARGROVE (Cameron Richardson)- Popular girl; Jesse's ex; Terry's new love intrest
AMBER HARGROVE (Dina Meyer)- Paula's mother; works with Boyd
LUCAS BOYD (Grant Show)- Works as devil's advocate; tries to seduce Christina to the evil side
TERRY BURKE (Brent Weber)- Obsessed with Paula; falls in love with her; has a critically-ill father; works with Boyd.
RANDOM FACTS:
-created by BUFFY, THE VAMPIRE SLAYER co-producer Marti Noxon
-shot on location in Vancouver, Canada
-Christina's mother was born in Point Pleasant
-Christina's conception was immaculate

4/5 The best episodes never aired.
  by Harold Harefoot (Tucson, AZ United States)
I can see why Fox cancelled this show. The first four or five episodes were frankly pretty slow and boring. HOWEVER, they still made a mistake in cancelling it. Even Marti Noxon, the main producer, admitted on the "making of" featurette that they really didn't know what they were doing when the show first started. But after those first few episodes that aired, the show did come together and become something really good. Unfortunately, Fox (in its usual haste to cancel anything with any real promise) had already cancelled the show by the time the really good episodes were filmed and they never made it on tv. If you saw this show on tv and weren't thrilled by it, buy the dvd anyway. The later episodes that never made it to air show how good this program could have been if it had been allowed to continue and definitely make Point Pleasant a worthwhile purchase.

5/5 BRING BACK POINT PLEASANT
  by Natter (NY)
This show was different then all the other crap out there. Marti Noxon is fun, witty, and smart and she was getting somewhere with this. FOX has this thing where they love to cancel shows after 5 epsisodes exp. Wonderfalls, Tru Calling (Both Great shows) these were the shows I actually liked and now they are gone. The one thing YOU can do is buy the DVD's. SO please do!=) PP is so interesting and if you loved the Omen then you'll love this. Just because it deals with religion doesnt make it bad just more challanging. It's fresh and fun. Let's show FOX that removing this show was a BAD move on their part!!! BUY! BUY! BUY!