‘Tom Swift,’ The CW’s ‘Nancy Drew’ Spinoff, Buries Its Charming Lead in Clichés: TV Review
variety.comCaroline Framke Chief TV CriticYou don’t have to have watched The CW’s “Nancy Drew” to watch “Tom Swift,” the network’s new series that is, in the most technical terms, a spinoff.
Though Tom (played by Tian Richards) first appeared on the second season of “Nancy Drew,” the show bearing his name has little to do with it, which is for the best.
There’s no real need to complicate things even further for Tom, who goes through so much in the pilot episode that there’s barely room for nuance beyond the basics.The series’ rush to establish every moving piece begins immediately, with a voiceover that wastes no time illustrating the Swifts’ place in this world. “We’re not nerds; we’re Black nerds,” says Tom. “Oh, and billionaires.” Also, they’re “not the Obamas,” and “not ballers,” but inventors who are about to go to Saturn.
That this voiceover never returns isn’t the greatest sin a show’s ever committed. But given how “Tom Swift” spends its subsequent few minutes establishing all those attributes all over again, this blunt opening’s still a signal of how little the show trusts either itself or its audience to glean its fundamentals going forward.
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