Wednesday, September 28, 2016

This Is Great: This is Us Review

Paradoxically, I have been a little dismayed by the turn in NBC's fortunes. Sure, they may be No. 2 in the ratings, but when they were in fourth place, they seemed more willing to take risks and try series that were bold and daring (Friday Night Lights & 30 Rock were their most prominent examples of this, and even failures like Awake showed ambition) Now, they seem to be back worshipping at the alter of Dick Wolf, and its showed in their last couple years of original programming.
Which is one of the reasons their most recent burst of original programming shows more boldness than they have in awhile. This is Us doesn't play like a series that you typically get on broadcast channels. No crimes are involved. No superheroes. No overly ambitious serialized plots. Instead, we have a series that shows us some real human beings dealing with issues that actual people can relate to. Admittedly, there have been some bizarre twists so far, but they've actually been more endearing than anything else, because involve people, not just storytelling.
The series involves two parallel stories: Jack (Milo Ventimigilia, playing a human being for once) and Rebecca (Mandy Moore) are a married couple. On Jack's 36th birthday, Rebecca gives birth to triplets. It's a high risk pregnancy, and Rebecca loses one of the babies. In the parallel story, Kevin (Justin Hartley) a TV heartthrob in one of those terrible comedies (that one could see NBC producing just a few years ago) has a blow up on set at the awfulness of his show, and tries to quit. His sister Kate (Chrissy Metz, a true charmer) has been struggling with her weight for awhile, and joins Overeaters Anonymous, where she meets a 'fat friend', who seems compassionate. And happily married attorney Randall (Sterling K. Brown, light years removed from Christopher Darden) just found out who his birth father, a drug addict who abandoned him at a fire station was, and confronted him, only to learn he's dying, and invited into his home. The big twist of the pilot was that all of these people were related: Jack and Rebecca are the birth parents of Kevin and Kate (in 1980) and they adopted Randall. It was one of the few twists where I didn't feel cheated later on, because it was more about character than anything else.
It seems like Jack and Rebecca were good parents, but we can already see warning signs - Jack clearly has a drinking problem, and Randall has never gotten along as well with Kevin then his sister. Indeed, another revelation came at the end of last night's episode, where it revealed that in the present, Rebecca is now married to Jack's best friend. But this is one of the first series in a long time that I became emotionally invested in the characters, not because of the plot twists. All the actors are very good in their roles, especially Brown and Metz, and the guest cast can be extremely interesting (Katey Segal and Brad Garrett showed up last night).  It has the potential to be the most emotionally arresting drama NBC has created since Parenthood debuted, and that worries me. Because is a series that opened fairly big, with 10 million plus viewers. It's been awhile since a series that was a straight drama held that kind of audience, even with a hit like The Voice as its lead in. The old NBC would've kept it around for six season; I don't know what the new NBC will do with it. Please show understanding.

My score:4.5 stars.

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