Marti Noxon

STUDIO: Fox Home Entertainment

RELEASE DATE: October 25, 2005

PRICE: $39.98

TIME:585 mins.

DVD EXTRAS:"Making Of" Featurette

Not every television show to arrive on DVD is a good one. Sometimes they arrive just hoping that someone will pick them up to help recoup the costs of making the show. Or that’s my theory with "Point Pleasant."

Since I could barely make it through 3 episodes of this show, I’ll give you the brief synopsis provided by Fox: "After recuperating from her near drowning nightmare, Christina investigates the history of Point Pleasant and the unsolved disappearance of her mother. However, all hell breaks loose when Christina discovers her true origin — she is the offspring of a mortal woman and the Devil — and Point Pleasant becomes the ultimate battleground of good and evil."

Sigh. Somehow I didn’t expect the spawn of Satan to be so boring.

You know, if you took the mystery of "Twin Peaks," the evil of "The Omen," and some supernatural elements from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and threw them in a blender, you would come up with something better than this mess. What happens when this hell spawn enters the town of Point Pleasant? Mysterious people arrive to try to kill her. There’s a pseudo-mysterious sub cult of the local church watching her. People lose their inhibitions and start cheating on each other and behaving like they never normally would. Allegedly.

I know what you’re thinking. "Hey, I feel like I’ve seen this story before!" Well, you’re right. You have. And done much better. What’s truly scary is when you watch the "Making Of" featurette, you hear from writer Marti Noxon (of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" fame) discuss how they didn’t want to go over the top and wanted to make this an average community where unique things started happening.

Whoops. Too bad nothing much interesting happened. It’s as if the writers tried for the feel of "Smallville" and missed the mark.

As it is, all 13 episodes of the series including 5 which were never aired are on the 3 disc set and include the special feature of a "Making Of" featurette. That’s it. Don’t jump up and down all at once.

My advice? Skip your visit to "Point Pleasant." It’s one of those small towns you should drive through without stopping because you’re on your way to something better.

But if you’re really interested in the story plot line, try out "The Devil’s Advocate" with Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino. Same story, more entertaining, told in two hours instead of slowly dragged out painfully over 13. Trust me, after more than 3 episodes of "Point Pleasant" you’ll wish you had drowned like Christina almost did.