From Jon Harmon Feldman, former executive producer of the short-lived Tru Calling, comes a new television series which, to the naked eye and based on promo spots alone, seems to be mostly directed to the audience who loves the frothy teen dramatics of its lead-in The O.C., but given a chance to sit through the entire duration of the pilot for the unique FOX drama Reunion, your opinion will change immediately. This isn't just a frothy teen drama...it's a heart-wrenching growing up tale that also involves an interwoven murder-mystery aspect, told throughout a period of twenty years...each episode serving as a different year in the timeline in which our characters are living.
We begin the series by pushing into a funeral set in present day. The spectacled man giving the eulogy tells a story of six friends who, throughout high school and twenty years afterward, were practically inseperable. That is until one of them is tragically murdered here in the present. Flashback to their high school graduation in 1986 as we're introduced to each of the six friends. There's Carla (Chyler Leigh, Not Another Teen Movie), the typical girl-next-door type who — as we'll see twenty years down the line — will change drastically after the events involving her friends; Jenna (Amanda Righetti, North Shore), the beautiful and somewhat promiscuous wild child who has aspirations of making it in Hollywood; Aaron (Dave Annable, Little Black Book), the shy guy who completely overlooks Carla's crush on him for his own feelings for Jenna; the teen power couple Craig (Sean Faris, life as we know it) and Samantha (Alexa Davalos, Angel), who may soon experience an unexpected pregnancy; and rounding out the group is Will (Will Estes, American Dreams), Craig's best friend who's secretly had an affair with Sam behind Craig's back.
Within the first few minutes of the episode, we're taken to a party in which we see many of the characters drinking while Samantha nervously awaits the results of a home pregnancy test which Carla got for her by taking it from her father's pharmacy. The results come up positive and when Carla suggests that Sam tell Craig that he's about to be a father, she reveals that he may not, in fact, be the actual father of the baby she's carrying before returning to their friends in the other room.
After the party, we cut to Craig and Will driving home. Having drank quite a bit at the part beforehand, Will urges Craig to slow down but instead of listening to his friend's suggestion, he continues speeding and the two get slammed into by another car on the road. Even though both passengers end up being okay, Craig starts getting questioned by the police after they discover that his blood-alcohol level is above the legal limit to be driving. Scared out of his mind, he convinces Will, who had been sober on the way home, to take the fall and tell the cops that he was the one driving his friend home...not the other way around. This turns out to be a grave mistake when on the way back from the hospital to meet the rest of their friends, Will is arrested for vehicular manslaughter after the man who had been behind the wheel of the truck that slammed into their car wound up dying from his injuries. Craig promises to get his dad on the job and that they'll get everything cleared up and that they'll come clean so that Will won't have to be punished for Craig's mistake, but instead, Craig's father ends up convincing Will to go along with it since he'll more than likely wind up with nothing more than parole since he was sober while he was driving, unlike Craig, who would more than likely get locked up. Craig's father ends up being wrong about the outcome of Will's trial after he's sentenced with a maximum of 12 months in a state correctional facility, completely shocking everyone who thought he would get off with parole.
Article comments
1 - Matt Maltese
I thought it was awful. More about it in my TV Addict Confession article on Sunday...
2 - Joe
That's what I've been hearing from a lot of people. I thought it was far from horrible though...
3 - Brent McKee
I'm basically lukewarm about it, although I'm somewhat out of the target demographic for the series. The trouble with reviewing this show based entirely on the first episode - which is all that people who are not professional critics have to go on - is that the first episode merely establishes the premise and sets up relationships. It's going to take a few episodes to find out if the premise, which is sort of the "anti-24" is going to hold up and if the young actors (the oldest of the core cast is 27) are up to playing the sort of growth and character development (not to mention the physical changes) that happens over 20 years. So far we've only seen the Carla character as an adult, and while Chyler Leigh seems up to the physical change, all she's really had to do so far is narrate the story and smoke. It may need a couple of episodes to get started but so far I haven't been impressed.
4 - Baronius
It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't interesting. There was the rich kid / poor kid, the love triangle, the pretty-but-plain girl, the hot chick who sleeps around but really hasn't learned to love, et cetera. I found myself thinking of one character as Rob Lowe, another as I Know What You Did Last Summer.
I also think the format is going to be too limiting. In the present, they can't say anything to give away the mystery, so the dialogue is unnatural. It may overcome its limitations, but I won't be around to find out. Too bad; I had hopes for this show.