Welcome to this week’s installment of WWWW, or as we are known on Twitter, #watchwed.  This week, I’m reviewing yet another ABC Family show, The Nine Lives of Chloe King.

The show opens with a chase scene.  A young girl, who we can assume is Chloe, is running frightened out of a wooded area.  She heads up a tower, constantly looking back to see if she is still being pursued.

Once she reaches the top, she looks out, then turns around to find her pursuer staring her in the face.  He bids her farewell, using her name (hey, we were right, it is Chloe), and pushes her from the window.

Nothing like a good defenestration to start a show, eh?

Now, given the name of the show, we can assume that we haven’t already lost our main character so early on.  Although I have to say, she clearly deserved to be pushed out of the window.  Who runs into a tower that has only one way in and out?  Aren’t you asking to be killed?

Sigh.

The show then flashes back to fill us in on the few days leading up to the event we just witnessed.

Here’s what you need to know.

Chloe King (Skyler Samuels) is a beautiful and intelligent girl.  She lives in a nice home with her mom, who adopted her through questionable means from the Ukraine when she was an infant.  Although she doesn’t know the whereabouts of her adoptive father, she seems to get on just fine in her current situation.

Except she’s bored.  She wants things to be different.  On her 16th birthday she gets her wish, in the form of new abilities.  An amazing sense of balance, quick reflexes, heightened hearing, and retractable claws.

Without giving away too many details, she discovers that she is a member of the Mai, an ancient race with catlike abilities, who are being hunted by some organization that is set on exterminating them all.

If that wasn’t special enough, Chloe is the only one with nine lives, which makes her the prophesied “Uniter”, who will save what’s left of the Mai.

Oh, and by the way, she finds out she can’t be intimate with a human without harming them.  Even a kiss can kill.

First off, conceptually this show has potential.  It has superpowers and fantasy without some glittery brooding character we want to smack.

However, I must take a moment for a personal rant.

The main character is pretty and smart, and not at all unlikable.  She is a “good” girl.  Has a good relationship with her mother (Amy Pietz, a Caroline in the City alum…is ABC Family planning on employing the whole cast? ‘Cause I haven’t seen Malcom Gets since Amour*), has a few close friends and has never kissed a guy.  Yet, she wants her life to be different somehow.

The solution?  Sneak in a club, dance all night and kiss a guy she just met.  Problem solved!  Life is so much better now!

Ok, so maybe that wasn’t said.  But I can’t help but be a little upset with writers that tell me this girl who has it good in so many ways needs to go be a party girl to feel alive.

End of rant.

Putting my own personal issues aside, the character’s development seemed rushed within the timeframe, although faced with a crazy guy out to kill you, that could be understandable.  Not enough time is spent on most of the minor characters for us to care much about them.  Except her best friend, who we spend enough time with to know that she is incredibly annoying.

Some have called this show the new “Buffy”, given the teenage blonde heroine with supernatural powers, but don’t expect Whedon-esque dialog here.  This is not to say that the show is doomed to fall in the shadow of Buffy, like so many others who have followed the “pretty girl kicking butt” formula.

As stated, the concept is a good one.  There is conflict, action, and potential for dangerous romance.

For that reason, despite my rant and some flaws, I give this an SSTV** with potential to be MACTV** for the right audience.

#WatchWed Follow up: I’ve watched some more Switched at Birth.  I am upgrading it (for now) to teetering between JFTV and MACTV.  I will watch it again to see where it falls. 

 Did you watch The Nine Lives of Chloe King?  What did you think?  Did her best friend annoy you, too?  Let us know what you thought in the comments or on Twitter using the #watchwed hashtag.

 Next week we’ll shift gears and bring you some TNT drama with Men of a Certain Age and Franklin and Bash.

And don’t forget to check out Tiffany White’s review of a the ABC Family show already in progress, Pretty Little Liars.

*Obscure musical theatre reference?  Oh yeah.  Nailed it.

**What? you haven’t memorized the rating system?