1.1 The Mortal Cup To give it its due, it gets the first part out of the way quickly and fairly elegantly. The opening sequence establishes that this is a magical world with demonic type nasties in it, and also people who hunt them. Then it pulls back to introduce us to the main character, Clary (Katherine McNamara). Just turned 18, she’s a talented enough artist to bag herself a place at a prestigious art school, and also quirky enough to be working on a graphic novel about monsters with her best friend. So far, so good. But then it’s time to introduce some other characters, and that’s where things start to go wrong. The series of books the show is based on, The Mortal Instruments, has a pretty large supporting cast, and Shadowhunters seems determined to introduce as many of them as possible in as short a time as possible – including all aspects of their personalities and relationships to one another. So we meet Clary’s best friend Simon (Alberto Rosende) and immediately establish that he’s hopelessly in love with her, while she’s oblivious. Meanwhile, his bandmate Maureen (Shailene Garnett) is hopelessly in love with Simon, though he’s mostly oblivious. Then there’s Clary’s mum, Jocelyn (Maxim Roy), who we learn through flashbacks is a kickass monster hunter who’s had a warlock (Harry Shum Jr) alter Clary’s memory to protect her, and Clary’s pseudo-step-father, Luke (Isiah Mustafa), who’s hopelessly in love with Clary’s mum, though she’s oblivious. It’s a lot to take in, and there’s still more to come. The other major player the episode introduces is the villain of the piece, Valentine (Alan Van Sprang). And while you could almost blink and miss it in amongst everything else this episode wants to get across, he’s an unpleasant sort hiding out in the ruins of Chernobyl. Yeah. Seriously. For my money, that’s where this show goes from an awkward but potentially endearing bit of supernatural fluff to a slightly distasteful mess. It’s not clear yet whether we’re supposed to think Valentine was involved in the Chernobyl disaster or whether he just set up camp there because it’s unlikely anyone will stumble across his lab o’ monsters, but either way, it’s a pretty terrible idea. With all those introductions to rattle through, it’s a wonder that this episode had space for any actual story, but there is a bit – Valentine has kidnapped Clary’s mum, for reasons as yet unknown, and he’s after Clary, too. In yet another bit of heavy-handed telling-not-showing, there’s a scene near the end where Clary’s offered two choices: to go with Jace and trust that he and his merry band of goth models can help her rescue her mother, or to go with Simon to the police and hope they can sort it out. She picks Jace, obviously, because there wouldn’t be much of a story otherwise. But it’s all so awkwardly handled, with so much cringeworthy dialogue you’ll need to consciously unclench your embarrassment muscles afterwards. Even in the first episode, it’s clear plot elements have been reshuffled, and characters have been altered. Luke’s a cop now, for starters, while Simon is a singer, rather than a bassist, and his band has been swapped out for an aged-up Maureen. It’s hard to tell – would it be easier to watch this show with no prior knowledge of the story, trying to stay on top of all the hundreds of seemingly irrelevant seeming bits of info this pilot throws at you, or as a fan, trying to juggle all the pre-existing versions of the story and characters in your head to keep on top of how this show is going to work? It’s exhausting, either way. Maybe most of this episode’s problems can be put down to the fact that it is only a pilot, and maybe with time the characters will get some breathing space and things will start to develop a little more organically. Or maybe it’s always going to be this awkward. Shall we give it another couple of episodes?
