The Cape: The Complete Series (2011)

Honest cop Vince Faraday is framed for a crime he didn't commit, and his good name dragged through the shitter by the media. To more effectively battle the corrupt system that framed him, and to simultaneously clear his name, he enters the underworld and assumes a new identity: Vince Faraday becomes The Cape!

You can probably already tell by that intentionally cheesy synopsis that The Cape is a superhero series that doesn't do anything particularly new or inventive. What it does is give the familiar a new skin, and it does it with tongue-in-cheek while keeping one hand on the accelerator. It has the camp charm of the 1960s Batman TV Series, with the action and scripting of a modern TV show. Its greatest strength is that it revels in its comic book inspirations, and if you embrace that same sense of adventure you'll probably enjoy it a lot more.

Vince is played by David Lyons. I'd not seen him act before. He starts out a little blank, but gets better as the character develops more. He learns to brood.

What really pulled me in was the supporting cast, who are wonderful: Keith David brings the awesome; Summer Glau brings the intelligent and sexy; and Vinnie Jones brings the Vinnie Jones.

On the flip side, the main villain, Chess, lacks any real menace or charisma. He's the typical corporate bad guy with an endless supply of cash to fund his criminal endeavours. Mercifully, he isn't the only antagonist.

The introduction of a criminal collective known as Tarot offered some exciting possibilities for the future, but they never got the chance to flourish because the series was cancelled just when it was starting to get really good.

10 episodes, approx 44 minutes each.

3 times it's okay to stalk your wife if you're legally dead out of 5