"Locke & Key," Year One

I've always had a penchant for the lost causes, and I guess "Locke & Key" is the latest one. The beloved comics series penned by Joe Hill has been on the verge of being adapted as a film or series for nearly a decade. It came very close twice, before Netflix finally got a ten-episode series produced. However, this clearly isn't the adaptation many of the comic's fans were hoping for. Instead of a gloomy horror piece, "Locke & Key" is now a teen-centric adventure series.

The Locke family consists of mother Nina (Darby Stanchfield), older teenage son Tyler (Connor Jessup), teenage daughter Kinsey (Emilia Jones), and precocious younger son Bode (Jackson Robert Scott). They're uprooted from Seattle after the traumatic death of the Locke patriarch, Rendell (Bill Heck), to move to the Lockes' old homestead, Key House, in Massachusetts. Bode quickly discovers that Key House is full of magical keys that convey all kinds of magical powers. The Anywhere Key can open a door to any location. The Ghost Key can let you leave your body and become a phantom. However, there's also a lurking, nasty presence, who Bode dubs "The Well Lady" (Laysla De Oliveira), who wants to get her hands on the keys and use them for her own ends.

There's a lot of tonal clash from the outset. Bode's fun to watch as a curious kid who jumps headfirst into all the magic and danger of experimenting with the keys. Unfortunately, he's not the main character most of the time. We also have Tyler and Kinsey grappling with adolescent angst and relationship troubles, while their mother digs into their father's secretive past. Depending on what scene you're watching, "Locke & Key" feels like "Harry Potter," a CW supernatural teen soap, or a Lifetime mystery thriller. And then there's a villain who is too powerful and too far ahead of the game than anyone else. And the frustration of the Lockes consistently failing to communicate important information to each other.

I like the premise fine, and there are a lot of interesting ideas and mysteries to pick apart. However, the narrative isn't constructed well, and feels amateurish and sloppy in ways that can't simply be chalked up to the story being adapted for a younger audience or to fit a lighter tone. A big problem is the pacing, which doggedly insists on introducing one or two keys per episode, and spending endless scenes with Kinsey reluctantly getting to know budding filmmaker Scot (Petrice Jones), or Tyler cozying up to a girl named Jackie (Genevieve Kang). The teen melodrama wouldn't be so bad in smaller doses, or if it were tied into the plot more, but the high school material often feels like filler, designed to stretch the series out to ten episodes. I noticed multiple scenes with a lot of dead space and extraneous dialogue, and I suspect that you could cut about ten minutes out of each episode without anyone noticing. And dear god, some of the teen blather is so deadly dull, it made me miss Joss Whedon and his crew something fierce.

And it's a shame, because Netflix clearly committed some serious resources to "Locke & Key." The set design is great, and Key House looks amazing. The individual keys have been lovingly designed and do suitably fantastic things involving all sorts of fancy effects work. My favorite is the Head Key, which allows the holder to enter the minds of people as if they were physical places - Bode's mind is designed like a funhouse, and Kinsey's looks like a shopping mall. However, the series also commits one of the classic blunders - it has all these magical concepts set up and never uses most of them in any meaningful way. The finale is full of glaring plot holes and convenient Macguffins that make all the characters involved come across as forgetful idiots. As a result, the basic thrills and chills never really work.

It's hard not to wonder how "Locke & Key" might have fared in other hands. Then again, the existing version isn't unsalvageable. In fact, it's so close to being something good and compelling, it's irresistible to want to nitpick all the little flaws and wrong turns that it makes. And the show is entertaining in fits and starts, and Petrice Jones is charming as hell. This one clearly should have stayed on the drawing board a lot longer, but I'm glad the creators took their shot. It's a miss, but it's a well-intentioned miss.

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