The Crow TV Show Nobody Likes To Talk About (For Good Reason)

With "The Crow" remake's trailer getting murdered by YouTube dislikes, long-time fans of the franchise may find themselves wondering whether this means the Bill Skarsgård-led take on the supernatural vengeance theme is destined to join the ranks of the surprisingly many blemishes in "The Crow" franchise. After all, history has shown that live-action projects regarding "The Crow" are far more likely to land in the critically lambasted pile with "The Crow: City of Angels," "The Crow: Salvation," and "The Crow: Wicked Prayer" than they are to recapture the magic of Brandon Lee's "The Crow." Then again, the fact that the Skarsgård version is a movie and focuses on the classic story of vengeance is enough to make sure it's not the most far-fetched "The Crow" project out there. That dubious honor belongs to "The Crow: Stairway to Heaven," a TV series that ran from 1998 to 1999. 

While "The Crow" franchise features an overabundance of turkeys, "The Crow: Stairway to Heaven" serializes the poignant drama of the original movie, destroying the simple revenge premise in its very first episode and setting Eric Draven (Mark Dacascos) on a potentially unending quest to redeem himself by helping the innocent. Though slightly better-received than the abysmal movie sequels, the one-season wonder of a show is still pretty bad. What's worse, "Stairway to Heaven" turns the poetic, highly visual story of the source material into a lukewarm, serialized case-of-the-week form that deeply undermines what "The Crow" is all about.  

From James O'Barr's original comic to the Brandon Lee movie and even its unsavory sequels, "The Crow"  live-action franchise has always leaned heavily on a simple premise. A guy who dies in a profoundly unfair fashion is resurrected as an unkillable entity with a penchant for Gothic fashion. This is the Crow, and his only mission in un-life is to avenge the violent deaths of himself and a loved one — a brutal justice he delivers swiftly and painfully.

Imagine that story drawn across an entire 22-episode TV show season and potentially beyond, and you have "The Crow: Stairway to Heaven." For those wondering how it manages to stretch that simple vengeance tale into a series, the very first episode gives Eric a kid sidekick and reveals that he can't actually kill the people who murdered him and his partner, Shelly (Sabine Karsenti). Instead, he has to figure out how to redeem his soul in a way that doesn't disappoint his dead partner. Episode 2 features a villain of the week with similar powers, with some commentary about the evils of music business thrown in. Episode 3 tangles the Crow and Shelly's spirit into a murder case that's been pinned on an innocent man. 

In other words, this is a supernatural procedural instead of a revenge story — one of those shows that could potentially have run forever if it found its audience. As 15 seasons of "Supernatural" and 7 seasons of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" can readily prove, there's definitely a market for shows like this — but the notoriously quick, violent, and to the point "The Crow" revenge premise simply isn't a good fit for watering down into a drawn-out story.