(Spoiler alert: Plot points follow.)

The series' most original bits involve the aftermath of a car explosion, when Faraday is presumed dead but hides out with a gang of circus freaks who moonlight as bank robbers.

In this unlikely setting, a hero is born.

Grandiloquent ringleader Max Milani (played by Keith David, the show's most entertaining actor) initiates Faraday's transformation from straight-arrow cop to crime-fighting man of mystery by teaching him 37 vanishing illusions that involve using a cape as a weapon.

Er, what?

Hastily crafted from a random curtain, the cape and Faraday soon become one. The fledgling superhero names himself after a comic book favored by his son (Ryan Wynott) and starts kicking ass by twirling his cape really fast to confuse the bad guys.

The show hits familiar estranged-hero beats when Faraday, unable to reunite with his wife and son, articulates the shopworn sentiment that "one man can make a difference." But the cape-as-weapon gimmick and carnival-of-misfits environment inject enough surreal twists to keep the show mildly off-kilter.

After all, circus weirdos can usually be counted on to bring offbeat charisma to otherwise straight-ahead melodrama. Superpowered carnies stole every scene they were in during the last season of Heroes, and HBO series Carnivàle pushed every voyeuristic button available, drawing an outrageous masterpiece of Dust Bowl repulsion and fascination with roots in Tod Browning's unsettling Freaks and David Lynch's Eraserhead.

As for The Cape, there's nothing like seeing a thug dwarf cold-cock the imprisoned leading man as he's tied to a chair, as a mutant named Scales looks on.

Also worth watching is sci-fi's lithe It Girl Summer Glau, who adds a 21st-century dimension to the proceedings in her role as a spunky blogger known as Orwell.

The Cape wobbles between super-earnest sentimentality, straightforward action scenes and the not-to-be-missed cape-twirling stunts. Here's hoping the show finds its groove. In the meantime, The Cape serves to remind us about Job One for every superhero: Make civilians take you seriously, no matter how ridiculous the costume.

The two-hour pilot episode of The Cape airs at 9 p.m. Eastern/8 p.m. Central Sunday on NBC before settling into its regular Monday-night slot. Check additional shots of The Cape in the gallery above.

Above:

The Cape in Action

Exploding cars pop up periodically on The Cape, with David Lyons in the title role.

Authors: Hugh Hart

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