Speaking of Lauren Graham, she was far and away the best part of NBC's latest drama, Parenthood. The show revolves around four adult siblings, their parents, and their spouses and children as they, well, grab barrelfuls of clichés, sentimentality, and contrivances and huck them at the viewer for an hour... That makes the pilot sound worse than it was, but honestly, if I had to sum up the show in a single word, it would be "contrived." No contest.Parenthood has a lot going for it, including a stellar, all-start cast, a decent premise, and solid production budget, but I get the feeling this might just not be my kind of show... I generally quite enjoy a good ensemble drama, but when the entire basis for your show is that being a family is hard, like really, really hard, it's hard to tell from just a pilot if I'll really get sucked in. After only the pilot, I could really take it or leave it.
Parenthood's sprawling ensemble cast seems to center around Peter Krause, to a certain extent, but all in all, it doesn't appear to have a real central focus. I understand that this is all part and parcel of the whole ensemble gig, but it made the pilot seem a bit unfocused and meandering. Don't get me wrong, the very fact that this isn't a procedural with an obnoxious A-plot wins it about a million points in my book, but I'd like the show to appear to know where it's going. Quite frankly, it's what is making it so difficult to write a comprehensive assessment of the show. Where do you start when there is no start? Anyway, trucking right along, I think that's related to what I'm guessing will be the biggest problem this
show is going to face. The cast is very large and some of these characters aren't anywhere near as captivating as others... To sum it up, I'll have more Lauren Graham, please, and less... everyone else...Lauren Graham came onto this project after Maura Tierney dropped out for medical issues. As much as I like Maura Tierney, I can't even imagine what a dreary downer this pilot would have been with her in the role of screw-up single mom Sarah instead of Lauren. The entire pilot would have been pretty flat and sobering had it not been for Lauren Graham's sparkle and charm. She brought a warmth and light to an otherwise earnest, self-important show that was at risk of taking itself way too seriously. Now, Lauren Graham doesn't appear to have actual magical powers, so she could really only save the scenes she was actually in, but mercifully, that was most scenes, so she managed to wrench this show out of self-righteous clichedom and bring it some real personality and character. It really really really made me miss the classic days of Gilmore Girls... It was a little strange to see Lauren not playing Lorelai Gilmore, but every now and then she'd say or do something that reminded me of days gone by a
nd it really made me smile. I shudder to think what this show would have been without her, but I'm a little morbidly curious to see the original pilot with Maura. If her role in this would have been anything like her role in ER, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be giving this show another episode... Not that she wasn't great on ER or anything, but I don't think she could convey genuine happiness or fun if her life depended on it... Lauren Graham, by contrast, is warm and funny even when she's breaking your heart. Her character's date with newly balding and doughy ex-flame Jim was some of the best stuff in the pilot. For all her wonderful boisterousness, Graham also excels at the small subtleties of life. I have to assume that the role had to be completely retooled for her because I can't imagine Tierney pulling off the same lines with equal charm. The only points during the pilot where I found myself really smiling were with Graham, even when she was dealing with her "degenerate children." God, how I've missed her.The other bright spot in an otherwise mediocre mishmash is the always wonderful Peter Krause. He kinda sorta forms the center of the pilot, but I have a feeling the writers are going to rotate the focus of the show, so who knows who'll be the lead week-to-week. Where Graham's newest incarnation had inklings of Lorelai Gilmore, Krause's role as eldest son Adam smacked more than a little of his role as Nick George on Dirty Sexy Money. Krause plays the rock, the go-to-guy, basically the problem-solver of his siblings, but fortunately Krause manages
to bring more to the character than the standard bag of tricks. This role could have easily been the know-it-all Mr. Fix-it of the family, but Krause's performance is much more layered than that. That someone who excels at solving other people's problems is faced with a son with Asperger's Syndrome should make for some really great stuff to come. I was fairly ambivalent regarding the character until Krause has to confront his father and tell him that there's something wrong with Max, Krause's son on the show. As ever, Krause knocks it out of the park and brings an impressive amount of depth and heartbreak to a character we only met 40 minutes ago. Other than Lauren Graham's every moment on the show, that was the best.Rounding out the siblings are commitment-phobic Dax Shepard (who plays Crosby, yes, Crosby (who would name a character Crosby, you ask? The same people who would cast Dax Shepard in anything.... ew. Oh, Kristin Bell, you can do so much better) and workaholic ice princess Erika Chrsitensen. They both did decent jobs with their roles, but at the end of the day, they just didn't really grab me. While Graham and Krause struck me as multi-layered characters, Shepard and Christensen seemed like ultimate clichés and pure contrivances. Unless the writers give them some real dimension, they'll just be stock characters for the more interesting players
to bounce off of. Christensen does a pretty good job with what she was given, but that honestly wasn't much. My real concern with these two is that they won't become more layered, but will still be the center of some episodes. Much like Heroes or Grey's Anatomy, when you have a huge ensemble, there are a lot of characters and storylines to keep track of. The peril lies in having some characters who bore you to tears, but who necessarily get a lot of screen time. It's one of the primary reasons I gave up on Heroes. When only 3 out of 17 characters actual interest you, it spells disaster for the show. Here's hoping that's a pitfall Parenthood can avoid. At this point, there's certainly room for other characters to grow on me, so I'll be giving this show more time to really find its footing. There are oh-so-many characters to choose from that surely a few will keep my attention. Although they did do that thing where all the characters say everyone else's names a million times which always drives me nuts, so that loses them a lot of points. I realize you have like 47 people for the audience to keep track of, but I do not need to be constantly reminded of people's names and social relationships. It makes it all seem less authentic because, well, no one talks like that! Ugh.As if the principle four weren't enough, throw in their parents, all their kids, significant others, and bit players, and you've got a whole hell of a lot going on. And somehow, at the same time, absolutely nothing going on. Maybe the banalities of daily life in a big family
just aren't my cup of tea, but little league baseball and parent teacher conferences just don't quite do it for me... The pilot basically showcased your typical bickering family, but who really love each other, don't ya know. It's almost like these shows have some ridiculous notion that the more dysfunctional a family is and the more everyone argues with everyone else, the closer they are. I'm not expert or anything, but in my experience, families that fight constantly aren't all that close at all, but are simply trying to convince themselves that they are. It all just seems like one big obligation in the end. Every time I see a show like this, I'm always a bit mystified. Is this how family life really is for people? If so, why oh why does anyone do it? Life is stressful enough without having to come home to a house full of drama. With rare exceptions, my siblings and I got along just fine and we all adore my mother. Granted we all hated my father, but we just casually ignored him. Shows like Parenthood seem to think that a family isn't a real family unless everyone is gathered around a dinner table arguing. Thanks, but no thanks. To the show's credit, it did include elements of the family actually getting along and showing some conradery, so that tempered the obligatory arguments considerably. I hope they maintain a balance, but I have a sneaking suspicion this might go the way of so many other family dramas where every episode is a battle and every little thing that happens is the end of the world. Ugh.This show certainly has a lot going for it, and I'm intrigued enough to keep up with it for now. I think the writers are going to have a hell of a time getting all these people in the same place at the same time week-to-week, so I have to assume they'll have a couple of A-plots each week and simply shift the f
ocus around. That's all fine and good until I lose interest in three quarters of the storylines and simply have to trudge through those to get to the ones I actually care about. Again, here's hoping that doesn't happen, but odds are, that's where we're headed. Even just with the pilot, it seemed pretty silly to me that all these adults and their children are spending so much time at grandma and grandpa's and who spend most of their days talking to or worry about their siblings. I know there are a lot of siblings out there who are close, but really, how many entire extended families do you know who would go to a kid's baseball game? Seriously, this kid must have had 17 people in attendance, including aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. Contrived, much?For all its faults, the show was well made and has a pretty solid base to build on. This concept might just not be up my alley (I'm sure a lot of people can relate to this kind
of family tension, but I really can't), but I'm intrigued enough to give it some time. I certainly wasn't blown away and I'm not as sucked in as NBC would like me to be, plain and simple. Contrivances aside, the writing was adequate and the dialogue didn't make me want to punch people, so that's definitely a plus. There are certainly aspects of the show that will invariably drive me crazy, but I'm hoping it has enough going for it that I'm willing to overlook those. Again, the fact that it isn't a crime procedural automatically makes me want to like this show, so odds are I'll be more forgiving than usual.Now if only I liked children, we'd really be cooking with oil! Mercifully, the children themselves are not the real focus of the show (at least not at this point), and most of them are at least teenagers, so that certainly helps. I admittedly spent the better part of the pilot wishing Mae Whitman would suddenly assume her alter-ego as Ann Veal from Arrested Development, but her newest incarnation was okay... I
guess... ("She has a really low center of gravity. They call her the wall." "What, is she funny or something?" I miss you too, Arrested Development. Oh, so much.)I think the moral of the story for Parenthood is that the all-star cast made me pine for the awesomeness of their previous shows rather than latch onto their current show. That's...not a good sign. This was a difficult show to sum up because it just kind of meandered for an hour, telling me who was who again and again. I grouse about this a lot, but good pilots don't feel the need to explain every single facet of a character and his/her relation to the world. Parenthood pretty much did nothing but establish people and relationships. Who knows, maybe that was the point. You know, that people are more important than events. Well, if that's the case, maybe you should have more interesting people... Not that Graham and Krause couldn't anchor a show, but with Parenthood, there really isn't an anchor. Or a rudder for that matter...
We'll see how it goes. They established a whole hell of a lot with the pilot, so hopefully they'll actually do something with those people in episode two. I'm not completely enamored of this one (you know, in case the epic thus far was a bit too vague), but I definitely seem some potential. If for no other reason than Lauren Graham, it's worth it to give this show as much of a chance as I can. First impression though? Meh.
Pilot Grade: C+
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