Cinerant

Requiem

I'm a couple of days late, but I wanted to comment briefly on what might have been the end of a series Wednesday night, Jack and Bobby. For those of you who've never seen the program, it's about a single college professor in Missouri raising her two sons, Jack and Bobby, one of whom will grow up to be president sometime in the middle of the 21st century. Jack is a high school Junior, while Bobby just started the eighth grade. Despite the title, the show was first and foremost an exploration of their relationship and their relationship with their mother.

The show wasn't always successful. It sometimes went egregiously off-track, but when it worked, it hit home runs. Three different episodes brought me to tears this year. The only other program that's done that at all this year was Lost when Boone died. The Pilot was phenomenal. Then, somewhere through the halfway mark of the season when Bobby's first Goth girlfriend broke up with him, he crumbled into a ball in the floor in tears. I was right there with him. (It sounds corny, but the show played it for high tragedy and it worked.)
Then in this week's finale, Jack met his father who he thought had been deported back to Mexico, but was actually in prison. Their reunion was heartfelt, touching, and incredibly well-written.

Despite that, there were aspects of the show that didn't work--it's sometimes heavy-handedness, Grace's refusal to change and adapt to the world around her, the writers not quite nailing the religion aspect of the program, the times it tried to adopt an agenda, as well as the flash forwards. Still, at times, the show was as good as any great television on TV now. I'm sure the WB has found a star in Matt Long. Christine Lahti was characteristically brilliant (and definitely earned her SAG and Golden Globe nods), but Logan Lerman was the find for me. As impossible as it sounds, I'd love to see Lerman to get an Emmy nod for Best Actor. There's too much competition this year for it to happen (Keiffer Sutherland, Matthew Fox, Ian McShane, Denis Leary, Hugh Laurie, Dennis Franz, Dylan Walsh, etc.), but he is deserving.

Unfortunately, the show is on the bubble, and will probably be cancelled by WB, which is a real shame when they continue to air poorly written morally vacant programming like One Tree Hill . Well, at least there's still Everwood.

posted by cinegod @ 11:12 PM