Ringer Review -- And My Crazy "Fight Club" Theory Regarding The Show

Warning: this post might contain spoilers, but only maybe because I'm perhaps misinterpreting things (or am I?).

The pilot episode of "Ringer" on the CW was good enough (1960s-era "they're cousins sisters! identical cousins sisters!" special effects aside), but the only way I can see this premise stretched out over multiple seasons is if some strange LOST-type pseudo-mystical/sci-fi craziness finds its way into the storyline. Luckily, we have Nestor Carbonell on-board just in case this happens.

Sarah Michelle Gellar is, in essence, "Ringer's" biggest special effect -- not in terms of the fact that she is playing identical twins (we're talking a lot of obvious split screens and a second actress with a blond wig playing Gellar from behind here), but simply because Gellar's Gellar. We can't keep our eyes off her spunky, oft-sulky diminutive frame -- after several years of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" being off the air, and her doing not a lot of TV in-between, she's still a small-screen superstar. And she's perfect in these dual (or are they?) roles of Siobhan (the fuck-up stripper sister trying to get her life back together) and Bridget (the rich sister who has an ideal life -- or does she?) -- the former appropriately angsty, and the latter a complete ice-queen in over-sized sunglasses.

Following a plot very similar to that of the popular manga Arisa, the twin with a crappy life reunites with the twin who has a seemingly perfect life after many years. The "perfect" twin suddenly jumps overboard a motorboat they are both riding on (in Arisa it was an open window), and the other sister takes her place only to discover that her twin's life wasn't so great as she thought. Bridget's husband Andrew (played by Ioan Gruffudd -- that's right, Mr. Fantastic) is a cold douche, and she's cheating on him with another married guy, hot douche Henry (who's married to Bridget's red-haired best friend Willow Gemma). Complicating the mix even more is her husband's bratty horny teenage daughter from a previous marriage, Dawn Juliet. Rounding out the cast is Carbonell as the darkly handsome FBI agent Angel Victor who keeps mysteriously popping out of nowhere to keep Siobhan safe, and wise NA coach Giles Malcolm as the only person who knows her double life.

Again, this all sounds very intriguing -- though perhaps not enough to justify a multi-season series. I mean, how long can Siobhan keep up the charade? How much dysfunction can she possibly learn about her sister's life? How long can the mystery of these twins be stretched out?

My theory is -- it can't be stretched out unless there is another element here that is not immediately obvious but will be slowly played out more and more throughout the course of the series. That element could possibly be that there are no twins -- that either Siobhan (who had past sobriety issues) or Bridget (who is apparently on some sort of meds) is hallucinating the other girl as a way of dealing with her problems (a la "Fight Club"). Additionally, we could have a case where she has a multiple personality -- or purposely took on another identity as a way to escape her problems, but then that tactic got out-of-control.

Now, this storyline could eventually get even more esoteric and crazy if it takes a "Mulholland Drive" turn out of nowhere, with nothing we are seeing in these first episodes really happening the way we thought it was. In that scenario, Victor is not an FBI agent at all, but rather some sort of Rod Serling type character leading Siobhan/Bridget through various aspects of her life.

I'm probably reading way too much in this series based on just one pilot episode -- but I'm willing to give the show a few more weeks to see how things are panning out. I just hope they don't focus too much on Dawn Juliet in order to cater to that all-important teen audience...that's what "Secret Circle" is for!