Bates Motel

Rare is the movie adaptation that is not just excellent, but which becomes its own radiant achievement. It doesn’t seem too early to bestow that praise upon Bates Motel.

It’s completely engrossing to witness Norman’s blossoming psychosis, which is frightening in a non-horror-story manner, even as Norma’s prickly personality provides Bates with regular, welcome moments of unexpected funniness.

All in all, its assured storytelling and fine performances give a worthy contemporary spin to a classic.

Season 3 gets off to a busy, skin-crawling start.

Things go bad quickly, which is to be expected. The challenge with this show will be to keep it appropriately Crazy Town without letting it get Loony Bin bad.

Whether other people's secrets will prove to be as interesting as the intimations of Norman's not-so-sweet future remains to be seen.

Having started with a bad premise, producers Carlton Cuse and Kerry Ehrin then made it infinitely worse by rejecting the loneliness and isolation that were the nucleus of Hitchcock’s film.

Farmiga and Highmore are alone on stage, humming to jazz music played in the piano, the chemistry is magnetically charged. Bates Motel Anthony Cipriano, Carlton Cuse and Kerry Ehrin, it took these names to recreate the **** legacy, balancing the fame and art, it is TV horror- something that hasn't quite cultivated as it has in cinematic life- among the best. First of all, it is one of those rare spin-off that works, it bucks the trend, but that's not saying a lot considering that we haven't had major success in such derivations. And it is to not be easily forgotten that even a huge funded show as such, the series took some time before it started running on the field smoothly. Some might give it a few episodes, personally I think it was from the third season where they finally agreed, in sync, to what or how they have to showcase this troublesome family. And it is a family event. Unlike the films, this one deals majorly with the reasoning and history of why these members were pushed like such. And as far as that part is concerned, I find that they are hitting all the notes on the right scale. Do notice that whenever a family drama is involved, the chapters soar above all the other genre it claims to be. Some of the best elements are them, these family members, trying to resist and accept each other in the middle of this blood bath and crime sites that they take along with them, wherever they go. Another expected outcome, is the performance of the cast. The creators have invested smartly on Vera Farmiga and she serves the appetite you were expecting from her. What's surprising is, Freddie Highmore- especially in third season where he transforms from something innocent to less innocent- pouring his soul out, he crafts this infamous character with precision and watery communicative eyes. Just watching these two reside in Bates Motel, makes the day for me.

There are many fans who would never be happy with any deviation from Hitchcock's take on Psycho, and while I do not consider myself one of them, I am torn between the things in this that I perceive as genuinely good, the production values and Vera Farmiga's stunning performance, and the truly terrible such as the way the show handles the constant theme of sexual abuse. Coupled with the show's inconsistent tone, often unbelievable characters, and insistence on removing the best bits of the Psycho mythology while fetishising other superficial and non-essential details, there was so much more for me to dislike than like about this.