1 out of 5

Creator: Melissa Rosenberg

Competent premise and some good lead actors are coddled into irrelevance by plotting and dialogue that doesn’t seem to remember that we’ve seen all of this before (many, many times) and that the TV danger ante has been upped significantly from getting scared off by drug dealers and bad guys waving guns around.  Or actually, scratch that, ’cause Person of Interest does fine with normal bad guys.  So, really, it’s just the bad writing.  Marta (Mitchell) knows her hubby is casually involved with some criminal business but she’s done with it.  Unfortunately, her “get out now or I’m leaving” ultimatum ends in her husband’s death and his debts – drugs and money – being transferred to her purview.  That ‘Widow’ sticks to a ton of generic tropes isn’t so much the problem as is the complete lack of danger or involvement drummed into the whole affair.  Marta never seems properly affected by any of it and slinks into her new role way too easily from an emotional standpoint.  Some people die during the following 8 episodes – which are paced appropriately, forty minute snippets of that week’s attempt at Marta trying to get free and clear – but we aren’t given much reason to care for anyone (including, damningly, her husband), and so every threat from scary mob guy Goran Visnjic (as ‘Schiller’) has an empty feel to it.  Radha and Goran do a fair job with the material they’re given – Goran is especially effective at creepy charm – and though the rest of the roles are painful stereotypes / character archetypes through and through (the Russian father, the pompous brother, the naive daughter) there are shells of interesting plots hanging around, but nothing can muscle through the hammy/lazy writing that just skirts the principle ‘how to write a story’ elements and expects its viewer(s) to carry on.  The ‘problem’ with TV is that it’s easy to put it on in the background out of idle curiosity, and I’ll admit that I did that with Red Widow, week to week.  But my interest was never piqued beyond that idle state, making the show completely forgettable and capable of being summarized with a shrug.  (Or one star.)