Eye Candy (TV series)

Eye Candy is an American thriller television series that premiered on MTV on January 12, 2015. The series was developed by Christian Taylor, and is based on the 2004 novel of the same name by R. L. Stine. Eye Candy stars Victoria Justice as Lindy Sampson, a tech genius who goes on the hunt for a serial killer in New York while searching for her lost sister Sara. On February 11, 2014, Eye Candy was picked up for a 10-episode first season. Justice revealed on April 18, 2015, that the series had been cancelled.

Premise
Eye Candy centers on tech genius Lindy (Victoria Justice), a 21-year-old woman who is persuaded by her roommate, Sophia (Kiersey Clemons), to begin online dating. Unfortunately, she begins to suspect that one of her suitors might be a deadly cyber stalker. She teams up with her friends, a band of hackers, to solve the murders he committed, while unleashing her own style of justice on the streets of New York City in an attempt to find her sister, Sara (Jordyn DiNatale), who was kidnapped three years earlier by an unknown suspect.

Main

 * Victoria Justice as Lindy Sampson, a 21-year-old hacker, who dropped out of MIT after her sister was kidnapped, and is set on finding the Flirtual killer
 * Casey Deidrick as Tommy Calligan, an officer at the NYPD
 * Harvey Guillén as George Reyes, Lindy's coworker, close friend, and confidant
 * Kiersey Clemons as Sophia, Lindy's roommate and best friend
 * John Garet Stoker as Connor, Sophia's best friend and Lindy's frenemy

Recurring

 * Ryan Cooper as Jake Bolin, one of Lindy's love interests
 * Melanie Nicholls-King as Sgt. Catherine Shaw, the head of the Cyber Crimes Unit of the NYPD
 * Eric Sheffer Stevens as Hamish Stone
 * Marcus Callender as Detective Yeager, Detective Calligan's partner
 * Rachel Kenney as Detective Pascal
 * Theodora Miranne as Tessa
 * Nils Lawton as Reiss

Guest stars

 * Daniel Lissing as Ben, Tommy's former partner in the Cyber Crimes Unit, who fell in love with Lindy. He was murdered by the Flirtual killer.
 * Jordyn DiNatale as Sara Sampson, Lindy's sister, who was allegedly abducted
 * David Carranza as Peter, one of the guys Lindy found on Flirtual, who was murdered by the Flirtual killer
 * Peter Mark Kendall as Bubonic, a hacker
 * Taylor Rose as Amy Bryant
 * Daniel Flaherty as Max Jenner
 * Ariane Rinehart as Jessica
 * Erica Sweany as Julia Becker
 * Ted Sutherland as Jeremy
 * Erin Wilhelmi as Erika Williams
 * Ebonée Noel as Mary Robertson, Catherine's niece

Production and development
A pilot episode of Eye Candy was ordered on September 13, 2013, by MTV. The first and unaired pilot of Eye Candy, which starred Victoria Justice, Harvey Guillen, Justin Martin, Lilan Bowden, Nico Tortorella, and Olesya Rulin, was written by Emmy Grinwis and directed by Catherine Hardwicke.

On February 11, 2014, the series was announced as picked up for a 10-episode first season, with the first episode being reshot and all the roles being recast except for those of Justice and Guillen. On September 16, 2014, the cast was extended with Casey Deidrick, Kiersey Clemons, and John Garet Stoker all becoming series regulars.

Production began on September 15, 2014, and ended on December 20, 2014, in Brooklyn, New York City.

Reception
It received mixed reviews. Tim Stack of Entertainment Weekly stated, "While Justice is a winning actress, she's miscast here and not helped by a story line that feels like one of those old USA TV movies that would have starred Shannen Doherty and Rob Estes." Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times said, "The prologue is well-handled, suspenseful and alarming, but much of what follows seems at least a little bit silly or confused." More positively, Adam Smith of the Boston Herald said, "With the suspenseful Eye Candy, we have a pretty good show, especially for teens who get a thrill out of being creeped out." The series' pilot episode holds a score of 54/100 on review aggregating website Metacritic.