© The CW
Well, mid-season is officially upon us and the long holiday hiatus has come to an end. Time for new updates and new TV shows.
I had to check out “Life Unexpected”, due to the fact that the CW network has me completely and shamefully hooked. What’s more, the show is backed by producers/writers from the lovely “Brothers and Sisters” and dearly departed “Gilmore Girls”. I’m sold.
The premise: Lux is a 16 year old girl who has been in the foster care system her whole life, but somehow seems to have a pretty good attitude about things, coupled with a pretty great sense of style. She wants to be emancipated, but needs the signatures of her birth parents to allow her to do so. Her mom, Cate, is a well-known radio personality with a fear of commitment and having babies. Her dad, Nate, is an overgrown child, who lives on top of a bar that he owns. The two are left to figure out how to raise a teenager together, after Lux fails to get her emancipation. And thus, we have “Life Unexpected”.
Although the first episode was full of clichés and painfully cheesy moments (Kate’s boyfriend Ryan ripping off “When Harry Met Sally” as he tells her all the quirks he loves about her, or Lux proclaiming her wish has already come true after being told to make a wish on her birthday cake, or Lux telling Cate she had always actually been in her life, every day on the radio (okay, that was actually kind of sweet)), I enjoyed watching the pilot episode. Lux (played by Brittany Roberston) is a great young female lead, and seems to have the same spunk and wit as Rory did back in the glorious Gilmore Girls days. The rest of the cast is fairly charming as well. Kerr Smith’s Ryan is a bit far-fetched at this point – a man who is obsessed with marrying his girlfriend even though she continually shoots him down (and cheats on him, although he is unaware of this) and somehow seems completely comfortable with having Cate’s child (who he never knew even existed) become their responsibility. Do you know any guys like that? Because I sure don’t. His kindness and forgiveness is a bit too sappy for my liking – but I suppose this is only the pilot, and hopefully, there is a lot more to his character than we initially see. We can also assume that his nice-guy persona will slightly crumble when he inevitably discovers that Cate slept with Nate the night that they discovered Lux. No show is ever complete without the over-used but always entertaining love-triangle motif.
Although nothing brilliant, the pilot was at least good enough to make me want to watch next week, and in time we will be able to tell if it possesses the same wit and snappy writing that made “Gilmore Girls” the cult hit that it was. Or perhaps it will be something entirely unique on its own. Expect the “UneXpected”. (Oh wait – that’s the Big Brother slogan. Oops.)
The mark: B
I was going to watch this. Then I decided I watch too much TV. Is it worth it??!!!
Hard to tell since there’s only been one episode so far, but it has potential. I think you’ll like it… there’s always room for more TV!