COLUMN: Riverdale

Last week, I was a bit of a Debbie Downer. Instead of the usual silly banter about cats and pop culture, I used my column space to eulogize a dear friend who left us way too soon. I was hoping to get back to more silliness this week, but alas, another friend has left us way too soon, and I fear we may need one more eulogy.

Farewell, Riverdale. You were the most ridiculous TV show I've ever been hooked on, and you will be missed. It's undoubtedly going to be a good long while before a show this bonkers ever gets greenlit again, so let's take a moment to sit back and appreciate its profoundly silly legacy.

If you've never watched Riverdale, either (a) you don't watch the CW network, or (b) you don't have anyone under 25 living in your home. Youth seems to be a fundamental prerequisite to even approach an appreciation for Riverdale. Either that or you need to be a newspaper columnist with the emotional maturity of a teenager and WAY too much time on his hands.

For those who haven't had the pleasure, Riverdale is loosely based on the beloved, long-running Archie comics. The characters we know and love from the comic books of yore are all present and accounted for. There's plucky teenager Archie Andrews and his best pal, Jughead. And there's Archie's competing love interests: girl-next-door Betty and big-city socialite Veronica. They live in the quaint everytown of Riverdale and their lives are filled with wacky hijinks and the whimsical follies of life as a teenager.

Its just that the hijinks and follies on the TV show are a tad less wacky and whimsical and a bit more psychotic and murderous.

In the Archie comics, the gang's plans are often foiled by the hard-nosed Miss Grundy, their white-haired, no-nonsense teacher at Riverdale High. In the TV show, we also meet Miss Grundy right away in the pilot episode -- when she and Archie are having sex while they accidentally witness a murder. Yep, it took about one minute of the pilot episode to realize this isn't your dad's Archie comic.

The Archie I grew up with liked to hang out with his friends eating burgers and shakes at Pop's Chock'lit Shop. In the TV show, Pop's is a front for Veronica's secret speakeasy she runs out of the basement. In the comics, Archie's teenage garage band writes a song called "Jingle Jangle." In the TV show, Jingle Jangle is the illicit street drug that the gangs of Riverdale riot to control. I would love to have been a fly on the wall in the Riverdale writer's room. You know those people had FUN.

Riverdale was helmed by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, a writer who -- true story -- had once been sent a cease-and-desist letter from Archie Comics for trying to mount an unauthorized stage play where Archie moves to New York and comes out of the closet. Critics were never kind to Riverdale's half-sensical crazypants plotlines, but the teenage fans of the show ate it up until the plotlines became too hammy for even the most ardent of fans.

In the first season, Archie and his pals try to solve a murder. In the second season, there's a serial killer stalking Riverdale. In the third, there's a crazy cult AND the school falls victim to a fad Dungeons-and-Dragons style game that drives students insane. By the time the sixth season rolled around, even the craziest plotlines were running out of steam -- so they decided to give Archie and his friends SUPERPOWERS, because what the heck, why not? It got to a point towards the end where even the cast seemed embarassed of their own show.

Me? I ate it up. I was perfectly okay with the hammy dialogue, the insane plot twists, and the absurdity of the whole thing. If you're wanting to watch something grounded in reality, maybe pick a show that ISN'T based on a comic book? If you want gritty drama that reveals the inner truths about the nature of man, maybe choose a show without a lead character named JUGHEAD? If you're watching Riverdale and expecting anything other than mindless popcorn fun, you're doing it wrong.

Riverdale was a glorious train wreck, and I shall miss my favorite secret shame. Worse yet, with its passing, so too ends the CW network as we've known it. For years, the CW has been THE home for impeccably cool young-adult TV. When it first sprung from the ashes of the WB and UPN, the CW gave us shows like Gilmore Girls, Supernatural, The Vampire Diaries, and Gossip Girl, which helped cement the network's legacy for top-tier content. Over the past decade, it's been the home of fantastic superhero shows like Arrow, The Flash, and Supergirl. Its the network that birthed Veronica Mars and My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, two of the most compelling TV shows to ever exist outside of streaming.

But the CW was recently sold to Nexstar, who immediately cleaned house and cancelled nearly every venture that made the CW special. In an effort to make the always-struggling network profitable, its new owners are moving to a line-up that will rely heavily on low-budget reality TV, shows licensed from other countries, and sports coverage with minimal production budgets (starting next year, the CW will be the new home for the NASCAR Xfinity series.)

While the CW never turned a profit, it DID turn heads -- and made executives realize there's an audience for ridiculous shows like Riverdale. Hopefully, other networks and streaming services noticed. With any luck, someday someone will launch a TV show even more bonkers than "Riverdale." I really don't want to be forced to watch GOOD television. Those shows are kinda Debbie Downers.