It came to pass that this evening, I watched the premier of Fox’s new drama Reunion. I did this thing because I thought that the show had a fascinating central gimmick: starting in June 2006, with six friends, one of whom has just died – then flashing back to one year in their time together, starting in 1986. Each of 20 episodes would be one different year.
The execution is perhaps not as intriguing as the concept. For one, there was a curious imbalance in the “80s-ness” of the flashback – most of the references and clothes felt very artificial and forced, like a thin veneer of 1986. Obviously, I don’t expect lengthy diatribes about the Evil Empire mentality, supply-side economics or the nascent fundamentalist movement in a teen soap, but nothing here is essentially of the time.
And that points to another flaw: it’s a teen soap. At least right now it is. And not a particularly supple one: the characters are straight out of Archetypeville. With plots that simply ooze tepidity: will the good kid lie to save his drunken car-crashing friend? Will the chick who got knocked up during a one-time fling get an abortion (I’m sorry, a “procedure,” as the show oh-so-noncontroversially avoids the topic)?
I’ll be honest, I’m going to watch the next few episodes anyway, just to see how the show navigates a move away from it’s core demographic. Because if the show gets that far (a remote possibility, I’d wager), it ought to be interesting to see what they do to make the travails of early-thirtysomethings palatable to the O.C. crowd. Personally, I can’t wait for the 1995 show, when they’re 27, and the whole episode is set in a Starbuck’s.
Updated: why anyone would want to comment on the existence of this show is not readily apparent to me, but now the comments have been turned on. Oops.