First debuted on January 26, 2017, “Riverdale” is a TV series that has been growing its popularity around the globe. Director Roberto Aguirre Sacasa created the series based on the original Archie comics.

The Archie Comics were first created in Pelham, New York, where each comic would feature main characters including Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Jughead Jones, Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mental, Josie, Jatty Keene, and Sabrina Spellman. All of these characters continued into the “Riverdale” TV Series.

The series was set in a fictional town that depicts how the “core 4” friend group, Archie,Veronica, Betty, and Jughead deal with their not-so-normal high school experience.

The series currently has 7 seasons and is no longer planning to continue the series with the last episode being premiered recently on March 29, 2023.

Season one is about the murder of secondary character Cheryl Blossom’s twin brother Jason and how the “core four” worked to solve the mystery.

When watching the series with my sister Georgia, we found the first season compelling as she stated how “I like the amount of detail that the show went into, it distracted me from the ultimate murderer of Jason at the end of the series.”

My sister and I excitedly waited for season 2, that was about how the new town murderer, “The Black Hood” would affect the town, and especially their effect on protagonist Betty Cooper.

At the time, both seasons evoked my interest for crime, and I admired Roberto Aguirre Sacasas well-thought out work.

Season 3 is where things took a turn for the series, with the main plot being about a “Gargoyle King” which my sister remarked “This was a bad part of the show because how could anyone fear The Gargoyle King? It honestly just looked like a walking tree.”

I had a similar opinion to my sister, but I decided to brush off the bad season thinking that with four more to go, the show is destined for an uphill turn.

Season four of the series might have been the worst season I have ever watched of any show. The plot was barely made clear through the episodes, with the biggest event being “creepy video tapes about people’s houses being placed around the town.” With the season consisting of 19 episodes, I find it strange how all of those episodes could have lacked a central plot compared to season one in which Jason Blossom’s death was prominent throughout all 13 episodes.

I thought it would be impossible for the show to get worse than it had become, but again, I was wrong. I found that season 5 lacked any central theme with all 19 of these episodes being about the transition that the friend group experienced from high school to college. As a high school student myself, one would think that I could relate to this, maybe I would for one or at the most two episodes, but all 19 episodes are way too much detail about one plot.

Season 6 was nothing short of confusing with the town of “Riverdale” shifting into a parallel universe called “Rivervale”. Each episode was constantly switching between the universes and it was extremely hard to differentiate between the location of the scene at the time.

Finally, Season 7 is about time travel where Riverdale goes back in time to the 1950’s and needs to be restored before it gets to the present time. Both my sister and I agreed that though this season was slightly better than the four previous ones, it felt like the plot was extended over too many episodes and could have been a part of the story put into one or two episodes instead.

Overall, Riverdale started off as a really great series, with the first season being ranked 4.8 out of 5 stars by my sister and I. However, I found that as the seasons progressed, my overall ranking of the show would drop to a 2 out of 5 stars.

It is clear that the director had a big vision for the show, but I am just not sure that I like its execution due to the overdone ideas extending through 5 plus episodes and confusing relationships among characters. For these reasons, I would not recommend the show to other people if they are planning to continue the series past the second season.