Look

Adam Rifkin's small-screen spin off of "Look", his brilliant 2007 film about lives in L.A. being filmed through surveillance cameras is more of the same. The stories are strong but not quite as compelling or as tight this time around. We follow various groups as they pinball around the city, stumbling into or out of trouble.

There are two teenage sexpots who shop obsessively and are privately torn apart by their mutual desire for the same guy, a lawyer whose nagging, cokehead wife cheats on him with a slimy auto mechanic, a group of stoners who monitor the security cameras at a mall and skateboard in their off-hours, a homeless man with a strange and tragic past, a taxi cab driving rapist, a mini mart cashier who dreams of being a rock star, a group of teens who do drive-by shootings with paintball guns, a cop with anger issues, and a young, hip television executive desperate to fire an aging weatherman who works at his station.

Some of the characters, like the two sexpots and the mini mart clerk are retreads from the big screen. The sexpots are also played by different actresses and were infinitely more believable as high school students in the movie (though Sharon Hinnendael creates one of the most odious teenagers in recent memory as the creepy and manipulative Hannah)

There is always the sense that danger is lurking just around every corner. The plot threads may feel random at first, but if you stick with it Rifkin brings the whole thing together full circle in an amazing way.