Cupid

"You ever watch Fame? You know what I have in common with Bruno, Leroy and Coco? I'm going to live forever. What about you? You going to live forever? See, it would saturate my pleasure gland to rip your skin off and make ponchos for the kids. So keep your paws off my shrink here, because I'm a frustrated taxidermist and I'd love to go deep on you. We on the same team, butter bean?" -Cupid, Roman god of love

Back in 1998 Rob Thomas got his first TV show creation picked up, long before Veronica Mars, his writing on Dawson's Creek or anything else TV related. The show was about a man claiming to be 'Cupid', the Roman god of love, sent to earth as punishment, having to get hundred couples together without his trusted magical bow and arrows. Thrown in jail and skipped to a psychiatric hospital thanks to telling his story, he's faced with the psychiatrist, 'Dr. Claire Allen', who's assigned his case. He eventually fakes getting over being 'Cupid' and is released in her care, but immediately after released admits to her he's sticking to his cause of getting hundred couples together. Not only together casually or sexually or anything like that, as only 'true love in the eye of the gods' count towards his tally.

Jeremy Piven and Paula Marshall was cast as the leading duo in question, and their chemistry and abilities are undeniable. Both very much needed to pull off this kind of show. While 'Dr. Allen' works to figure out who this delusional 'Cupid' really is, our 'Cupid' works hard on getting couples together.

Paula Marshall as 'Dr.Claire Allen' and Jeremy Piven as 'Cupid'/'Trevor Hale'

The chemistry between our leading duo is a huge part of why this show worked so well. With two opposite views on matchmaking, as 'Cupid' was aiming for fire and 'Claire' for commonality, there's always something to disagree or argue about. Their relationship is evolving throughout the show, and to me this duo ranks quite high up there amongst TV show duos of all time.

The writing shows several signs of typical Rob Thomas thing to come in later works. His pop cultural as well as highbrow references, the dynamic banter and the general feel of the dialogues are all very similar to what I've come to love later in Veronica Mars, a show I've never made any attempts to hide my love for. Unfortunately the directions shown throughout the season, 14-15 episodes, Cupid got, also proved Thomas' lacked TV experience and good advise on this show.

I hated the 'Champ' character. He got way to much airtime, and was almost less important than 'Ms.Dent' in the earlier mentioned Veronica Mars were he did the same mistake. In Cupid the actor obviously had a lot longer contract than he should have had, as it had to be easy to spot for the writers they had very little useful to write him into.

There's a couple of other wrong directions chosen, but avoiding spoilers I'm not going to mention them here. And I'm looking to avoid spoilers, because I really recommend checking out the episodes made of this show. It's lighthearted and heartwarming at the same time, it's witty, the leading duo is great in every way and there's a lot of good guest stars attempted to be coupled up during the episodes. With this leading duo cast and a few changes, this show could really have become something amazing. Last year a remake was indeed launched as there was obvious more people than me spotting its potential, but the remake had other issues which I'll get back to in its review later.