Riverdale S1 vs OBX S1
So we’ve got Riverdale that started only a few years back, in 2017, but already streaming the 5th Season. Then we have Outer Banks (OBX), a relatively new, but well-received series that began streaming in Summer 2020, well-fitted with its setting. While the 2 teen dramas have differences, they’re certainly not short of similarities either. Here, we’’ be comparing the first seasons of both.
Both contain very much evident elements of mystery, with death at the centre — John B’s father and Jason Blossom. While at the centre there’s detective work going on, as is ordinary for teen life, lots of background events go on e.g. Veronica the new girl in town, love triangles, and secret romances vs treasure-hunting, more romance and stand-offs between the rich and poor. You’ve gotta hand it to the Riverdale for making it look more appealing at the initiation, because I have to admit, when I first saw the summary for OBX (“a group of kids search for missing treasure”), I didn’t exactly think it’d be to my taste.
Initial Appeal Winner: Riverdale
Next up, the character development. Now, this seems to be why Riverdale have lost many viewers over the years. Take Josie leader of the Pussycats for example. In the comics, she is one of the base characters, however within the series, she’s degraded to a recurring character, who hooks up with Archie a few times, and maybe we see her love-life a bit with Sweet Pea for a bit, but since that only turns out to be a fling, that doesn’t last very long either.
Same with Kevin Keller. He’s just the ‘gay best friend’, however if he’d properly been developed, a lot more could have come from him, especially as he was promoted to season regular relatively early on. The most we get from him is in the musical episodes when he directs the shows, and a bit of his love life.
It’s mainly the core four that have the attention put on them with this aspect.
On the other hand, we really get good background stories from the characters in Outer Banks. For example, the core four have good details, but then we also see a lot from people like Sarah and Rafe. Although the character development in Outer Banks isn’t perfect, they’ve done quite well for only one season so far.
Character Development Winner: OBX
And one last point we can compare is dialogue.
We’ve got to begin here with some examples from the ‘more experienced’ series (click on the images to enlarge):
Do you see where I’m going with this? I mean ‘the highs and lows of high school football’?
On the other hand, we can count on JJ to incorporate humour effectively into his speech (be aware that the following will make more sense within context, as with the images above):
Dialogue Winner: OBX
To sum up, though, I must stress that the first 1 or 2 seasons of Riverdale have higher standards than 3 and 4, therefore why the main focus was on the first season, rather than comparing the others. Whichever way you look at it, Outer Banks is indeed off in a strong beginning, so fingers-crossed that the quality isn’t reduced, as some may say happened with Riverdale, if it was even regarded as enjoyable in the first place.
Originally published at https://leiback.wixsite.com on January 28, 2021.
