Forget the bright colors, harmless teenage hijinks and all-American purity of the Archie comic books that you grew up with (or flipped through while waiting in the checkout line at the grocery store) and get ready for something with a bit more bite. Debuting Thursday night, Riverdale presents all of the classic Archie characters and relationships in one form or another, but now the small town is a sinister place that can no longer hide its many secrets. A murder mystery sets the eerie tone of the show while scandals of all kinds are introduced until you’re convinced that no one in this place is what they appear to be. That’s the fun of Riverdale, yet another check in the win column for The CW’s comic book adaptations (Riverdale, like the CW's DC Comics-based series, is executive produced by Greg Berlanti).

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Riverdale isn’t a direct adaption of Archie by any means. Just a few short years ago, Archie Comics CEO Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa hit it big with Afterlife With Archie, a comic that told a horror story where the town was overrun by zombies. It was unexpected but also a critical and commercial hit. Now with Riverdale, Aguirre-Sacasa -- serving as showrunner and executive producer -- doesn’t go so far as to introduce a zombie apocalypse, but rather a little town with some big issues that get more twisted and perverse as things unfold.[widget path="video/embed/playlist" parameters="slug=riverdale-sdcc-2016-interviews"]For example, perfect girl-next-door Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart) is on a date with dumb-yet-earnest Archie Andrews (K.J. Apa) at the local Pop's Chock'lit Shoppe when rich-and-flirty Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes) walks in, igniting the classic love triangle. Sounds safe and familiar, right? Only it most certainly isn’t. Betty is high-strung, self-abusive and living with a nosy, controlling mother. Veronica’s family has been rocked by her father’s criminal dealings, leaving her and mom to try and get by on their own in Riverdale. And Archie isn’t interested in a love triangle when he can have a hot-and-heavy secret romance with school teacher Ms. Grundy (Sarah Habel).There’s also fiery Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch), a bit of a vixen and the show’s main source of antagonism, always full of vicious verbal delights. It's not immediately clear what to make of Cheryl given that it was her twin brother who died when they were out boating together, setting off alarms of foul play and spurring on the murder mystery that drives the show and complicates everyone's lives. She shows real pain, but also uses it to escalate her importance at school, earning both disdain and sympathy. Cheryl almost feels aware she’s in a subversive take on Archie Comics and is supposed to be the personification of a high school Queen Bee. Yet she sells it with such pointed conviction that she stands out as one of the most watchable characters.The rest of the cast is fleshed out by Archie's construction-worker dad Fred (Luke Perry), beanie-wearing Jughead (Cole Sprouse), stereotypical gay-best-friend Kevin Keller (Caset Cott), and Reggie Mantle (Ross Butler) ballooned into a bro muscle jock, all of whom we only get a taste of in this first episode.Everyone has been brought down to Earth from their comic book trappings. Some characters feel like a necessary piece in a high school drama while others have a bit more complexity to them. What binds it all together is the juicy and flavorful dialogue, the crisp pacing propelled by the murder mystery elements, and the excellent cinematography. The opening shots are picturesque and surreal, as if lifted from a dream-turned-nightmare, while a visit to Pop Tate’s is drowned in neon. Riverdale is an old-fashioned town with some decay beginning to show (literally and metaphorically) and is beset by a persistent fog -- an atmosphere that lends itself to methodical, stylish shots that enhance the moody tone. Riverdale certainly stands out as the best-looking comic book adaption on TV.And let us not forget to address the matter of how hot Archie is. Kevin even exclaims, “Archie got hot! He’s got abs now!” It wouldn’t be a show on The CW without stunningly good-looking young people playing stunningly good-looking teenagers, and the show certainly plays that up every chance it gets. It never quite made sense in the comics why all the women went after Archie given that he was a scrawny fellow with unremarkable features, a knack for screwing everything up, and no cash in his wallet, so this is at least one area where the show improves on the source material.