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Well, today was the big day — The Amazing Screw-On Head pilot premiered online. I’ve just finished watching it, and my verdict is… wait for it… very pleased.

First off, the artwork is totally Mignola, in look and feel. Everything is there — the muted color palette, the rich blacks, the macabre atmosphere. Whomever they got to do the artwork for Screw-On Head got it right. The pilot essentially looks like the plot of the comic, given motion.

Which is good, because that’s essentially what it is. The story of Screw-On Head is lifted directly from the comic, with only a few alterations and embellishments. A few characters are given larger roles, and their backgrounds expanded slightly — the most outstanding of them being Patience, a former lover of Screw-On Head’s who is now the vampiric thrall of Emperor Zombie. She gets quite a bit of screen time, most of it quite funny. There is also some added material with President Lincoln and Mister Groin, which works very well.

The writing is only mildly uneven, being mostly excellent. There are a few glaring anachronisms and some slightly tired humor (I think the worst would have to be Emperor Zombie regrettably saying, “Oh no he didn’t!”), but these are balanced out by welcome devotion to the tone of Migola’s work. Many of the lines I thought would surely be done away with (”I’ve always said we must exterminate all intellectuals for the good of society”) have been preserved, and the places where the writing derivates from Mignola’s original work, it stays surprisingly true to form. Giamatti gives a great performance as Screw-On Head, and delivers some nearly impossible lines in a very funny way. The music, incidentally, is also fantastic, having a very macabre, Tim Burton-like feel.

As far as low points go, there are few. Disappointingly, I found the character of Emperor Zombie to be the weakest. David Hyde Pierce’s voice seems too jovial and snappy for the skull-faced villain, and of all the characters, his seems to derivate most wildly from the comic. He has, without a doubt, the worst lines in the show. There are places where he works (and, to be fair, he is really funny in those places), and places where he doesn’t. Overall, I’d say Emperor Zombie would be the character most in need of a retool.

Beyond that, I literally have no complaints. This is a great pilot, and has all of Mignola’s wit and inventiveness — with a little more added into the bargain. Can it work as a series? I don’t know. Even assuming Sci-Fi picks it up, it might be hard to maintain the frenzied-yet-clever pace of the first. If they can, Amazing Screw-On Head could be one of the best, funniest shows to hit Sci-Fi ever.

Watch the pilot (if you can) on Sci Fi Pulse, and don’t forget to fill out the survey telling Sci-Fi to put this on the air!

Final rating: 9/10

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 13th, 2006 at 4:50 pm and is filed under Reviews, Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.