Saturday, April 26, 2014

Disagreeing with the Critics (again): Why I think ABC’s Resurrection should Live on for Another Season




I was extremely excited about ABC’s new drama, Resurrection, which debuted on March 7th, 2014.  Although I’m always a bit overly hopeful about any show by the makers of Lost (always holding out for hope that that type of magic can find itself once again onto network television), the premise of the show spoke to me.  It was about loved ones returning to the dead – focusing primarily (or at least first) on the return of an eight-year-old boy who returns to his parents 32 years after his death.

Lately all around me has been dark narratives about horrible things that happen to children.  My book club has picked an array of texts about children who die in terrible circumstances or become murders themselves (e.g. Sarah’s Key, Sharp Objects, Defending Jacob, We Need to Talk about Kevin, Life After Life, Still Missing) and television itself hasn’t shied away from offering up dead kids on the small screen (Walking Dead anyone?).  Since becoming a mother, such narratives disturb me in ways that they didn’t before and I struggle with them.   So, I was eager to delve into a story that reverses this premise (while still dealing intimately with issues of grief and the impact of losing a child).  Also, the idea of “rebirth” (or sorts) seemed to be a nice balance to the plethora of dark post-apocalyptic narratives filled with zombies and the like (which provide a pretty scary idea of rebirth). 

My enthusiasm as the pilot approached was also fueled by a good marketing campaign.  (I think ABC is often one of the best at marketing its shows – unfortunately they also among the first to give up on their new shows shortly after).  The show was advertised for months and with increasing frequency around the Super Bowl.  Using Skylar Grey’s “I’m Coming Home” as the background music for the trailer, I found myself walking around the house humming (and singing) the chorus over and over as the debut day approached.  The promotional commercials smartly featured clips from the first three “resurrections”:  an 8-year-old boy being reunited with his parents after 32 years, a 30-something man being reunited with his now 20-something daughter after many years, and a young engaged couple being reunited after a decade apart. 

Although I can see some of the issues with the show, I still like it.  To be fair, I am at the distinct advantage of having not seen the television show it is being compared to:  the critically acclaimed French series, The Returned (both are loosely based off of the book, The Returned, by Jason Mott).  Apparently if you’re comparing the two, Resurrected is destined to fall short.  But, since I’m not, I think it has potential.

The show is focused on a small town in Missouri, Arcadia, where deceased residents start to return from the dead.  The biblical allusions are abundant:  they each return to the town after having been awakened from the dead three days earlier and all of their deaths (to date) have been linked in some way to water:  one character drowned in the local river, another crashed her car near that same river, and another’s ashes were sprinkled in it.   (And the character’s names themselves, quite obviously, are pulled from the bible).  The question of whether such an occurrence would be considered a miracle or the work of a devil is explored with explicit religious implications as much of the town debates concerning whether these individuals should be accepted back into their community occur in the local church.   And at the center of these debates is Pastor Tom Hale who is linked to two of the returned persons:  8-year-old Jacob Langston was his childhood best friend and Rachel Braidwood was his high school sweetheart and fiancĂ© who committed suicide years before.   The show complicates the labeling of these resurrections as either completely good or evil through the returned characters themselves:   a child who did not get to live his life returns (which some see as fair) but a woman who threw hers away does also (which others judge); people return who seem to be of good heart, but yet another (Caleb Richards) returns and commits theft and murder. 

For me, the premise itself works:  having characters return to the dead to disrupt the lives of the friends and family and the community they left behind is powerful.   Although not always as emotionally realistic as I’d like it to be, I’ve enjoyed watching Jacob’s parents each accept his return in different ways and at vastly different rates.   The fact that these characters return years and decades later also gives the series a chance to play with the cultural shock that comes with societal and technological progress.  (Although the most poignant moments are those where such can be erased and the universality of life is stressed, for example when grown-up Pastor Tom sits on the floor playing video games with Jacob as they would have over thirty years ago as peers). 

The question, of course, is how long can the premise continue? The show is not (thankfully) trying to pull off an episodic structure where every episode a new character returns (although ominously it has been announced that “more are coming, more than you can imagine”).  Thankfully though the show has plot potential beyond the resurrection theme.   The paranormal aspects of the show are intriguing (the characters have interesting visions/dreams, are interconnected to one another, and we have to deal with things that seem unfathomable – like Rachel returning from the dead to find out she is pregnant from before her death).  But the other melodramatic plot parts are also interesting.  Like any drama set in a small town we soon learn that the town is full of secrets:  love affairs, haunted past failures, etc. 


It would be a shame if Resurrection became another one-season-wonder (like Flashforward which was actually infinitely better than this show I think), but with ABC this is certainly a possibility.  However, I’m going to hold on to the hope that this show will live on for one more year because I could use a little “life” to balance out the vast array of “death” that the rest of television is offering up these days. 

Monday, April 14, 2014

The Battle Between the New Sitcoms Featuring Twenty-Somethings: Initial Thoughts on ABC’s Mixology & CBS’s Friends with Better Lives



CBS’s longstanding hit comedy, How I Met Your Mother, went off the air last month and already sitcoms are lining up to try and fill the televisual void it will leave.  And void there will be.  It takes the right type of sitcom to replace one of its legend ancestors, but it can happen.  (I’d argue that How I Met Your Mother was that right type of comedy that was able to fill the void left by Friends). 

I could join the voices of the many who have chimed in about the ending of How I Met Your Mother, but it didn’t thrill nor disappoint me to the point that I feel one more opinion floating around on the web is necessary.  (The spoilers I discussed in my previous post on the show did end up being true but the emotional consequences of that plot turn didn’t turn out to be enormous as I anticipated). 

As I readied myself for the end of my favorite sitcom, I tried to look forward to the new ones being launched mid-season.  ABC’s Mixology came on the scene first and I liked it immediately.  CBS’s Friends with Better Lives debuted immediately after the last episode of How I Met Your Mother (a smart marketing decision, one obviously linked to their assumption that this show could replace the former), and I was less than impressed. 

Mixology is different.   And I need me some variation when it comes to the standard sitcom formula.  As its opening voice over announces, it is the story of 10 strangers, one night, one bar, and the ridiculous things we do for love.  It is set up much like romantic comedies (full of their self-helpy, prescriptive rules on dating do’s and don’ts) with tons of meet cutes and exaggerated battle of the sex dating scenarios.  But there’s something a bit interesting about the mutation that happens when you transport that genre into the sitcom.  What we get is not one couple whose “will they/won’t they” trajectory we will follow throughout a program (which is the televisual norm:  Friends’s Rachel and Ross; Who’s the Boss’s Angela & Tony), and it is not even five couples that we get, but rather we get these ten characters who have various encounters with one another to the point where we’re not sure who will end up with whom at the end of the night (hence the suspense and plot trajectory).   Each episode receives the title of two characters, implying its focus will be slightly more set on that possible pairing, but the show immediately shows that it won’t keep its pairings static as we’ve already had two episodes that showcase different romantic possibilities for one male character (e.g. “Jessica & Bruce” and “Bruce & Fab”). 

It’s also the temporal factor that intrigues me.  I absolutely love that it happens all in one night.  This temporal repression seems to really work (after all the entire season of How I Met was one wedding weekend).  What the show does to make up for this limited temporal span is integrate flashbacks, which I always find work really well for sitcoms.  As each character was introduced we received a quick backstory on each starting with their births and family lives.  In later episodes as they stumbled into some romantic road block, we get a flashback to this habitual relationship flaw they have in order to see how they repeat or overcome it. 

And I like the setting.  Comedy requires familiar settings and a purposeful play with stereotypical behaviors.  A bar/club and the single dating scene allows for both.  Although maybe they are a bit too clichĂ©, I found myself laughing at the scenes of drunk girls crying on the shoulders of unsuspecting strangers in the bathroom because I’ve witnessed such occurrences more times than I can count.   

I don’t know why I am fascinated by popular culture products focused on the dating scene.  Maybe because I pretty much bypassed that entire stage of life.  All of my long term relationships evolved out of close knit friend groups and most of them were with people I had known for at least ten years prior to dating.  I never went on a blind date, never Internet dated, and I didn’t socialize in large groups of girls who frequented bars in the hopes of finding love or lust.  But despite the fact that I seldom relate personally to these narratives, they amuse me and suck me in despite their sometimes problematic gender politics.  And at least they make me think and critique.   This is more than I can say of the other sitcom I mentioned.

There’s really little to say about Friends with Better Lives.  I wanted to like it because I am a product of the 90s and 00s and loved Dawson’s Creek like only a melodramatic teen and young adult can.  Therefore, I always want to support the afterlife of its cast, such as James Van Der Beek (Dawson).  So I tried to like The B in Apartment 23 when it was on last year, but didn’t.  And I was glad to see he was cast in this new sitcom.  Maybe I just don’t like Van Der Beek in comedy but prefer him more angst-filled roles.  Or maybe, truth be told, I always liked the rest of the cast of Dawson’s Creek a lot more (e.g. Joshua Jackson and Katie Holmes); I was “Team Pacey” after all.   But, I digress.  The show has the normal set-up of being focused on a group of friends:  a married couple, a newly engaged couple, the newly divorced bachelor, and the rarely-lucky-in-love single career woman.   But, besides for the humor involving a breast pump (which just strikes a humorous note for me having just retired mine), most of the scenes between this ensemble cast seemed forced.  It is early and shows sometimes take time to develop so maybe I’m being too hard on it but my first instinct is:  nothing new to see here.


Sitcoms continue to be one of the more affordable televisual genres so it is  more likely to see a comedy show stay with us on the air for years at a time.  So my hope is that writers and producers continue to give us some smart, quality shows in this genre so that what we’re getting (for years at a time) is worth watching.