By Kelly
I’ve been fascinated by the cover of this series all summer—a girl with goddess-like curls, cat eyes and a strange three-pronged scratch on her face—and finally caved and watched it. I wasn’t exactly sure what I felt about this show at first. There was certainly a strong sympathetic heroine (I want to be Skyler Samuels), some fun fight scenes (though not exactly high budget), great clothes (including one dress Chloe wore to a club that I totally want), great girl-power messages, likable characters and a great central romance (like Grey Damon) and a love triangle, but I just wasn’t sure about the whole cat thing. I mean, she’s a girl who, when she turns 16 gains cat powers (night vision, retractable claws, speed, always-lands-on-her-feet-ness) because she’s apparently a Mai, a decedent of an ancient cat god, and not just that, but she’s the “Uniter” (destined to end the war between Mai and humans) and has nine lives when all the other Mai do not.
Was it dumb? Was it too much like Dark Angel and did it really just want to be Buffy? Could I admit to my girlfriends that I was obsessively watching it without them laughing at me? (No, but I think they may be secretly watching it now, too.) After watching all 10 of the episodes in secession, I decided that no. It wasn’t dumb. It was awesome. And now I must read the book series it’s based on by Liz Braswell as well!
My only caution is that the last episode ends on a cliffhanger and has a Joss-Whedon-ness to it that really isn’t established in the previous feel of the show. I won’t tell you which aspect so it’s a surprise, but I really really liked it. But sadly there are only 10 episodes. It somehow got canceled even though both critics and viewers liked it. But apparently, ABC Family’s president Michael Riley announced that there’s a TV movie in development to end the story.
Anyway, give it a watch if you’ve got some summer time. It’s cute, light (usually) and it’s not much of a time commitment since it’s only 10 episodes.