The CW has recently come out with a new teen drama, Riverdale. This series is based off of the beloved American classic, Archie Comics; if you’re looking for a show that parallels to it, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend watching this. However, I do think it’s worth a watch if you just want to see how CW plays it out with some of your favorite characters. The plots are very different, but the characters and general setting are all inspired by the comics.

The show takes place in Riverdale, the fictional suburb where the Archie Comics is set. The pilot episode starts off with the mysterious murder of Jason Blossom, twin brother of Cheryl Blossom. Cheryl Blossom is Riverdale’s spoiled, popular mean girl that is captain of the cheer team and determined to dominate the school. The murder took place over the summer and was still the talk of the town when the school year began again. The new school year introduces all the main characters: Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, and Jughead Jones. Jughead, played by Cole Sprouse, who is writing a book on Jason’s murder, narrates the show.

Archie and Betty have been best friends since childhood, but Betty has been harboring secret feelings for Archie for a while now. Archie, however, is involved with his own affair with Riverdale High’s music teacher, Ms. Grundy. To make matters even more complicated, Veronica Lodge comes back to her mother’s hometown when her father is convicted of fraud and embezzlement. Therefore, the rich and spoiled socialite from New York City is reduced to a regular girl that is adjusting to life in Riverdale. Veronica also has her eyes on Archie, although her and Betty resolve their issues over Archie and end up becoming best friends.

Like all teen dramas, Riverdale has the following features: conflicted friendships, rich mean girls, love affairs and triangles, murder, mystery, and familial complications. I read somewhere where they compared Riverdale to Gossip Girl, and it’s a pretty good comparison. The rival best friends Betty and Veronica have a similarity to Serena and Blair. Not to mention that they both fight for the attraction of Archie, who does seem like the “Golden Boy”, Nate Archibald. While Jughead also seems very similar to Gossip Girl, however, I feel like the similarities really end there. If you’re expecting another Gossip Girl, you won’t have the same feeling from this show. Gossip Girl had the city, rich kid vibe throughout the whole entire show, while this is more like suburb drama with a few rich kids; it’s not the same.

Another interesting part of this show was the fact that most of the actors in the show are pretty new, and for many of them, this is their first major work. The cast is actually fairly young, so sophomores are actually played by actors of reasonable age for once. Archie is played by KJ Apa, who has been in a New Zealand soap opera Shortland Street, but this is his first debut in American television. He is only 19, but is already starring in this show and had a role as the younger Dennis Quaid in A Dog’s Purpose. I was most disappointed in his role as I felt that the character he was playing was very flat. I wouldn’t say his acting is amazing, but this also isn’t really the show where the actors can truly show their best performance. I think more than him being amazing at acting; he just really fits the role. The casting of the show is very good as everyone suits their parts.

Betty is played by Lili Reinhart. She is 20 and has been in many roles for small movies and a few episodes of TV shows. I’ve never seen her in any of her previous works, but I think she’s one of the most interesting characters in the show. She’s the all-around nice girl who struggles a lot under pressure from her mother to be perfect. In the show, you can see how all her inner conflicts of doing the right thing versus doing the things that actually make her happy. I think her performance is one of the best ones, mostly based on the fact that her role is a lot more interesting as the show focuses on her darker family past and her breaking free from her mother.

Camila Mendes plays Veronica Lodge in the show, and this is her first acting job. She graduated from NYU Tisch School of Arts, and she’s only 22. She’s one of my favorite characters in the show, but again I find her character to be very flat. She’s a loyal friend to Betty, and she does have her own family issues as her father is currently in jail. But, I think she could be a more dynamic character, and it could be happening later on in the show. They did cast her very well because she looks the part, and her acting is fine, but not brilliant.

Cole Sprouse is also one of the main characters of the show, and he was one of the main reasons that I started watching this show. Cole has become very popular through his social media presence, so it wasn’t a shock for me to see how much he’s grown up from being Cody on The Suite Life of Zack and Cody. I was really anticipating his role and his acting, and although he’s not a huge character that is really involved in the drama, he’s one of Archie’s oldest friends and the narrator of the show. Jughead is one of Archie’s oldest friends, but they’ve also drifted apart as Archie became more focused on his football and school life; however, you get a feeling that he’s a truer friend to Archie than the jocks he hangs out with. Jughead is another character that I wish had a greater character history shown because I feel that his role in figuring out the mystery behind Jason’s murder is integral to the plot.

Overall, I really do recommend watching the show. I find the show suspenseful and dramatic enough that it keeps your attention, and there are a few moments where it seems very over-exaggerated, but it’s exactly what you would expect from a teen drama. There is a lot that happens, and there are many cliffhangers at the end of every episode that makes you want to keep watching.

However, again, I have a problem with the characters of the show. I think they would make it infinitely more interesting if they actually focused on the pasts and troubles of the characters, but I feel like they fail to focus on anything other than Jason’s murder and Archie’s love affair with Ms. Grundy. They touch on Betty’s issues, but that’s it; there’s no mention of Veronica’s father or anything about Jughead. Even Cheryl is a character that they can really build up as she struggles with her brother’s death, but they simply don’t. I really hope that they continue to focus on the characters more because I think it could get boring very fast without it. My overall rating would have to be a 6.5/10.