ill check it out even tho ive never liked anything on a&e besides storage wars

Is this expected to be awful by everyone, or is my gut reaction off?

Not doing a pilot and skipping straight to a 10 episode season order seems to be a huge gamble.

I read a little bit of stuff about it, it seems like it will be good enough to check out, and I seem to remember it having a pretty good cast. The downside is that it's on A&E, who did shows like The Glades, which would be a basic cable reject. I put the odds on it being good at 50/50. It will either be good or it won't.

Meh, feels like a pretty shameless cash-in, no idea how they got such a talented cast.

It's like the Hannibal prequel, or the dumb extra backstory in the Halloween remake, nobody really cares how serial killers become serial killers, bluntly speaking we just want to see the gratuitous murdering in its full glory.

I hope it's got a Lynchian feel to it

'Bates Motel': 5 facts about the 'Psycho' prequel
by James Hibberd

The producers and cast of A&E’s Psycho prequel Bates Motel faced down TV critics on Friday and took questions about the new triller, which stars Freddie Highmore (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) as a teenage Norman Bates and Vera Farmiga (The Departed) as his mother as they open an ill-fated roadside motel. Here’s what we learned:

– There’s nothing supernatural about this horror series. With executive producer Carlton Cuse coming from ABC’s Lost, critics were curious if he was going to add any paranormal (para-Norman?) elements to the show. “No polar bears, no smoke monsters for sure,” Cuse says. “There’s no supernatural elements in play. We view this as a psychological thriller, as a very character based thriller type of story.”

– The show will be serialized; no murder-of-the-week. “Like all the best serialized shows, whether Breaking Bad or Homeland, it’s a kind of a story that takes ten episodes to unfold,” Cuse says. “And there’s some hooks that will hopefully carry us into a second season. We’re not just solving one particular crime. There’s a number of mysteries.”

– The backstory provided in Psycho and its sequels will not determine the story of Bates Motel. Producers say the show was inspired by the original 1960 film, but that’s as far as they’re creatively bound. “There’s a certain amount of baggage that comes from working within the Psycho franchise,” Cuse says. “But it ultimately seemed like far more opportunity … we are going to catch up with a version of the character from the movie, but we don’t feel literally bound, as someone asked earlier, to have Marion Crane come rolling into the Bates Motel.” In other words, the show isn’t, as one critic quipped, How I Stuffed My Mother.

– Vera Farmiga’s portrayal of Norma Bates is more sympathetic than you might expect. Producers point out that what Psycho fans know about Norman’s twisted mother largely comes from her insane son. “I got into this wanting to defend who that woman was,” Farmiga says. “[In the show] she was just such a beautiful portrait of valiant maternity to me … [it's] a beautiful love letter between a mother and her son, and that’s that’s how I perceive the character. There’s an Edvard Munch painting of the Madonna. It’s really warped and it kind of exudes the sacred and the profane and it’s just psychologically gripping, and that’s what I was so drawn to with Norma. She’s a playground for an actress.”

– What drives Norman nuts may be up for debate. “[Norman] kind of indirectly challenges the audience by we all know where he’s going to end up,” Highmore says. “It doesn’t give anything away to say that he’ll go on to be psycho. But is that necessarily because of his upbringing? It’s that sort of argument between nature versus nurture. Is he who he is … or is it because they move to this dodgy town and there’s a sort of weird, intimate relationship between Norma and Norman. And that challenges the audience to think, ‘Well, if I was in that situation, if I had had the upbringing that Norman had had, would I be slightly different?’ You know, we all go a little mad sometimes.”

That's all pretty hilarious, and actually makes me very worried about the prospects of the show. Bates clearly had mommy issues. I mean, he stashed her dead body up in the attic and talked to her like she was alive. This is not a feature of a normal person, who just happened to go mad. This is most likely a situation where the son became infatuated with his mom at a very young age, his mom probably stoked those flames, obsession became the norm (wouldn't be surprised if they had sex, too), and the rest was history. I can't even tell you how many times it's been mentioned in crime dramas that a person who uses stabbing as their form of murder has sexualized their crime. This show is probably going to become very guilty of try hard, if that's really what their approach is going to be.

Those answers sound soooo bad.

I get that you will play fast and loose with the character canon, that is fine, but to try and view it as a piece to defend Norma - that makes no sense to me creatively.

I really want this to be good, but have very little hope that it will be. I expect to be giving up somewhere round ep. 5 or 6. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Might watch it for Vera but not expecting much.

the first episode is up on xfinity on demand for free preview

this seems like one of those ideas that was better left as an idea. it just seems really strange to me. it's set in the present day, but they recreated the old psycho house. nothing was really clicking with me. about 3/4 of the way I was ready to write it off as awful, but they do just enough to get you to say maybe I'll watch a few episodes to see where they're going with this.

The actor playing Norman has me thinking I'll give it a shot.

thoughts on this? heard it was pretty good from others

It was actually quite decent.

Some new dwebish kid shows up in town and the first day every pretty girl in school including the teacher is throwing herself at him? Total BS.

Even though the mom is hot, she acts like a 12 year old half the time skipping around the house.

also from post #7

– There’s nothing supernatural about this horror series.

The previews indicate that there will be supernatural elements in the show.

Yeah the Norman 'Babe Magnet' Bates thing was a bit odd. I just assumed they were doing the usual 'hot girls pretend to get friendly with nerd before humiliating him' thing, which could still happen.

Thought it was pretty good. Freddy's english accent was coming out quite often, which kinda bugged me, but still liked him enough. Always love Vera.

lol me making this thread and not watching. will watch tonight. holding onto hope it's got a bit of twin peakishness in it....

No sir, I didn't like it.

I'm giving it one more and then I'm out.

I plan on watching but not in any rush. I'll probably wait til next episode or 2 and see how people feel about it.

I thought it was excellent, although i do love psychological thrillers more than most. Really like to see where this all goes. Will stick with this til the end, hope it's a success.

For an A&E scripted drama, the ratings for the first episode were great, and it repeated on Wednesday to higher ratings than an original for Psych. If it can stay in that ratings area, it will be around a long long time.