Well, it doesn’t look like it’ll be coming back for a second season but it’s time for a third-episode verdict on Cupid, the reincarnated Rob Thomas series about the Roman god of love’s need to match 100 modern day couples if he’s to return to Mount Olympus.
After a relatively bland and inauspicious start, things have only become blander and less interesting, making you almost hope for the ‘glories’ of Valentine. Even though the show started with very little of note, it did at least try to make Cupid vaguely interesting: a bit of a Mediterranean jack the lad. Now, he’s just puckish and has a couple of posters of Greece on his wall.
Meanwhile, Sarah Paulson’s ever-so-serious character has pretty much been a walking charisma vacuum, with little to do except for reprimanding Cupid and being the practical anti-romantic – a thankless task, even if she had any other defining characteristics, which she doesn’t seem to have any more.
The only other redeeming qualities about the show were that the couples being matched did at least seem pleasant and fun. Now, they’re there as plot devices, with the third episode’s "can a Republican and a Democrat really fall in love?" being one of the most shallow pieces of television I’ve seen since Knight Rider – the answer, apparently, is "as long as the Republican likes gay people".
All in all, a complete let-down that just goes to show you that even with a second chance, a show can actually get worse.
Carusometer rating: 4
Prediction: Cancelled by the end of the season, possibly pulled off the air even sooner
