TV Recap: Rosemary’s Baby, Part 2

Plot: We begin the second half of NBC’s mini-series with Rosemary (Zoe Saldana) discovering she’s pregnant. However, the pregnancy grows worse and worse by the day as it starts to physically decimate Rosemary. Meanwhile, Guy (Patrick J. Adams) is becoming more and more distant and disinterested in his unborn child and his wife. Rosemary’s BFF tries to get Rosemary to see her own doctor, but this leads to major problems within Rosemary’s marriage. The pain combined with new discoveries within the apartment cause Rosemary to fear for the absolute worst.

Well, that was an unmitigated piece of shit.

Apologies for the crass and rude nature of that opening line, but it’s probably the most apt description for how remarkably terrible the second half of NBC’s Rosemary’s Baby is. While Sunday night’s premiere was rather boring, the finale was utterly laughable. There was over-acting, under-acting, poorly directed death scenes, terrible special and visual effects and enough eye-rolling moments to cause serious damage to your ocular nerves.

Basically put…an unmitigated piece of shit.

Everything here was ungodly terrible. Pun intended? Sure, why not. There’s one scene that points to just how terrible this whole thing is. Rosemary is taken out by her friend for a “make-over” and the end result is this just brutally awkward short haircut. It was a blatantly stupid “cute” moment where Saldana adopts the famed Mia Farrow cut from the original movie. But it looks so bad the make-up department just slapped a terribly ill-fitting wig on Saldana and said “Eh, that’ll do.” That sentiment of “Eh, that’ll do” seems to be the one the saturated this entire production.

But that’s really a small gripe. The acting pretty much destroyed everything about this finale. Zoe Saldana, who’s a fine actress, just plays Rosemary so over the top that it’s completely unnerving. Every scene is riddled with tears and violent, banshee wails of lamentation. Patrick J. Adams was equally as bad. His performance is lifeless. He’s supposed to be portraying a self-absorbed yet completely devastated husband (let’s face it Satan took his spot in the bedroom and knocked his wife up) but instead he gives us an immature and monotone performance that had postage all over it it was so mailed in. As for the rest of the cast…they’re barely fleshed out, so even bother mentioning them?

The pacing and direction of the mini series was so blasé and uninspired that when we get to the final big reveal you have no real emotional investment in it. Instead of a breathless gasp of shock and awe, you shrug your shoulders and say “meh.” And for a horror series that should never, ever happen.

What blows this reviewer’s mind is that someone got paid a lot of money to give this a thumbs up, to put their blessing on it and say, ‘Yes, this is good enough to show to the world.’ This is mind-blowing because Rosemary’s Baby was an absolutely horrendous attempt at remaking a classic horror film. Nothing worked here, no performance was passable, no effect looked crisp and the tone was nonexistent. Yet, someone thought this would be a good thing to show the world. That someone is now laughing on their way to the bank as we speak.

In closing, Rosemary’s Baby…don’t even bother.

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Review: Rosemary’s Baby, Part 1 (Bill Bodkin)