IMO they took a really conventional approach to the storyline- i.e. mom is the crazy one and she drove Norman crazy by smothering him with her twisted ersion of maternal instincts.

It would have been more interesting, IMO, if Norman was the creepy one all along and it's his twisted perception of events and things around him that lead to his mother's death and everything that happens.

That's my problem with this show- it's just taking a really mundane, cliche approach to everything; in effect, dumbing it down for modern audiences.

I agree, I thought what they did in the first episode was rather strange. it was implied Psycho (1960) that Norman Bates was the one "dangerously disturbed after his father died". They took the opposite approach. Thus, ultimately, it is not as good as what I was expecting, but it is watchable. It should be noted, that this show deviates from the original storyline, quite a great deal.

Watchable if you're looking for a cliche, unimaginative, tawdry, uninspired hack job of a show, sure. If that's what one is looking for, go for it.

Watched the pilot this afternoon. It had its moments, and the Norma/Norman duo has good chemistry. That said, I probably will not tune in again as I think this is a horror series that will play the teen angst angle to death! I counted no less than 6 females throwing themselves at Norman. Norman Bates is many things, but a ladies' man he is not. :cool:

That was another thing I thought was really strange. It seems very unlikely that Norman Bates would ever have gone to a party or done anything like he did. Also, he would not seem like the type to have an iPhone (granted they did not have those in 1960 or the 1950s, but it still seemed out of character).

Agreed. You can call this show whatever you like and you can say it has nothing to do with Psycho, it's still terrible.

I, too, was confused about the girls in the show who were all over Norman. No way would he be someone who would be instantly accepted and invited out to parties by popular girls. The part when the one girl said there was something different about Norman, it screamed cliche and stupid.

Because they're going to blame everything on his mother. He was just a sweet guy who was under the influence of his drunken, vengeful mother.

Grrrr! This sounds quite terrible. As a great fan of original Psycho I won't like to spend my time on this for sure. The only show I'm eagerly waiting here to see is Season 2 of American Horror Story.

Anyway, it just came to my mind that instead of making a Prequel story of Norman Bates for TV, how about a show/series or even a movie about Norman Bates in an alternate-bizarre "reality"??

While the reading your replies, just for fun I was just thinking about an idea; something like this...One stormy night Mr. Norman arrives in an old-fashioned beautifully big cozy hotel--"Poe's Pit". This hotel is like a 'gateway' for the past or outside world for its all those weirdly interesting guests. And gradually Norman meets with the others...(& some of them are...) an aspiring writer Sutter Cane who just wants some quiet time for his next novel, Father Lankester Merrin who believes that the whole place is build upon an ancient tomb, Dr. Carmichael who claims he can prolongs the moment of a man's death through hypnotism, some old & newly recruited hotel stuffs...including a mysterious long-black-hair Asian girl and a young Charles Lee Ray who's secretly learning & likes to practice voodoo rituals in his room.
And as the story progress the question & suspicion will arise whether Poe's Pit is actually just a hotel or something else...a place more sinister than it's guest's troubled imaginations? or even whether these strange line of guests are actually signed in here with their original identity???

This is the first I hear about this show, which clearly hasn't reached Denmark yet (and who knows if it ever will). I'm not crazy about the idea though, and in my experience, prequels have a way of ruining what was once a good story.

Anyway, wasn't the (little known, it seems) 4th and final "Psycho" movie already kind of a prequel? And a pretty bad one too, although Anthony Perkins did a great job with what he had to work with.

Hahaha. I found that strange too. They might be going for the "mysterious new guy" approach even though he is sheltered or perhaps there is more wrong. He even gets another one interested in him last episode.


I think they are actually just trying to make you think that the mother is the crazy one, but she isn't. Dylan just hates her because she left his dad and she's always I think, had to be closer to Norman to cover up for him. After 2 episodes, something is telling me Norman has always been the crazy one and that is mother is extra protective because of it, check out the preview for Episode 3 :

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10101346550972947