I really wanted to like this new Sarah Michelle Gellar vehicle, but barely made it to the end of the first episode. Spoilers ahead, in case you plan to give it a go.

Everything about this debut effort annoyed, from the splitscreen allowing SMG’s twin characters Bridget and Siobhan to interact, to the acting by almost every lead on the show. Gellar and Ioan “Mr. Fantastic” Gruffudd (here using what I presume is his real accent, at least) both felt like they were phoning it in to get the Pilot payday and hoping it doesn’t go to series and occupy the next seven years of their life. SMG really only seems believable as Bridget, an ex-stripper in witness protection, while twin sister Siobhan, ice-cold and two-dimensional, seems to be Emma Frost by way of Jackie O’s sunglasses. Only Nestor Carbonell, who you may remember as immortal eyeliner guy Richard from Lost, seemed committed to his character, enough so that he seemed familiar, and then near the end I went, “Oh, he’s that guy from Lost.” But at least I bought into his character’s existence and dedication to his job. The actor playing Henry, the guy sleeping with Siobhan, Mr. Fantastic’s wife, is so insubtantial as to barely be there. One is hardly convinced a wealthy woman, even one as eeeeevil as Siobhan, would compromise her marriage for such a vacuous twit. 

Watched this with my son, who was convinced that Siobhan was dead after the boat incident (featuring the lousiest bluescreen/splitscreen effects of the episode) that allows Bridget to assume Siobhan’s identity. I told him “You don’t hire SMG to play identical twins and kill one off for real in the first episode. Just like we’re going to see that gun go off, we’re going to see Bridget’s sister again.” Would have thought they’d saved it for a week or two, though, not for the profoundly cliche-ridden final scene of the pilot.

Ringer wants very much to be this season’s Dollhouse — stylish, chilly, with untapped depths of mystery and cool, and obviously descending from Buffy, not to mention the alt.rock girl-and-guitar music montage featuring a bizarre cover of Chicago’s 25 or 6 to 4 — but it’s just Lifetime movie-of-the-week-level awful.