On December 4, NBC aired a live musical. They have done this before (The Sound of Music, last year), and they felt like it was worth a second shot to give another musical the live TV treatment. This time, it was Peter Pan (Peter Pan Live!, to be exact). Revamped with several new songs and the star power of Christopher Walken as Captain Hook, surely this musical would perform better than its lifeless predecessor?

Well, it didn’t. The musical started off well enough, with good acting from the Darling family (although Wendy seemed like she tried out for the part of Luna Lovegood and lost out) which provided for a decent opening.

Then Peter shows up. Now, I’m not denying that it’s a logical decision to give Peter Pan a female actor. It’s certainly easier than finding a man to sing those high parts. But Allison Williams looks and acts female. In fact, it turned my perception of Peter Pan as a character into a female. SHE led the Lost BOYS.

Another problem that I had with the musical was that the songs weren’t paced evenly enough. It felt like the songs were rushed in, with too little room for plot or character development.

Speaking of lacking plot, the pirates have a plan to blow up the island of Never Never Land that goes nowhere. They paint red Xs on the ground and forget all about their plan later on. This is only one of many painfully obvious plot devices that exist for no other reason than to rush on the next song.

Another moment that set me off was a Dora the Explorer moment when, around halfway through (spoiler alert) Tinker Bell was dying. Allison Williams looked directly into the camera and implored the children of the world to say they believed in fairies to save her. In the Disney movie, this doesn’t happen, and in the sequel to that particular film, there was a character to save her. This just felt painful, needless, and out of place in this musical.

My biggest pet peeve about this broadcast was what I thought was going to be the best part of the entire musical: Christopher Walken. I’m not ripping on his acting here, as he’s the best actor in the broadcast. However, he’s 71 years old. And when a 71-year-old man needs to sing, act, dance and sword fight with a woman 45 years younger than him, it shows. Oh Lord, does it show.

Walken moves slower than a snail on weed. It is another painful moment in a long line of wince-worthy moments that made this broadcast all but unwatchable.

I will not deny that the songs are nice and that there are nice moments (mainly with underlying pirates) but the musical is, for the most part, an awful conglomeration of rushed plot, songs that were crammed in for no good reason, and Christopher Walken showing his age. This garners one star out of five from me, worth maybe one watch if you’re bored but not the “holiday tradition” that NBC claimed it would become.