By Diana Lee LaBrecque
Most of us can look back at the nineties with fondness and recall some really great original movies coming out of the decade. The film that takes the cake on ‘best return to small home town’ has to be Beautiful Girls written and produced by Massachusetts native Scott Rosenberg. After working on several other screenplays like High Fidelity and Gone in Sixty Seconds, Rosenberg has moved to the smaller screen with ABC’s newest sentimental drama October Road. Still using the same premise as Beautiful Girls, Rosenberg writes about the likeable boy next door returning to his small, predictable hometown.
The thirty-something protagonist deals with damaged friendships upon his return after deserting and then exploiting his loyal town in a best-selling book. Apparently the entire population of this fictional Massachusetts town hasn’t heard of the writer’s credo ‘write what you know’. Considering that there are no readings of the offensive book in the pilot, it’s hard to say why everyone’s so angry and unwilling to forgive the author. One clear unforgivable aspect of the pilot is the language and misrepresentation of Boston suburbia. The infamous ‘wicked’ term wasn’t uttered until the last ten minutes of the hour-long show and the Boston accents were pretty much nonexistent. One could excuse the newbie cast for coming off so inexperienced and awkward if they had actually tried to drop their ‘R’s at least once.
The semi-familiar Bryan Greenberg plays the distraught character in question. Greenberg has been searching for his big break in Hollywood with several TV pilots and mediocre films. His most recent attempts include HBO’s Unscripted and poorly the received Prime (with Uma Thurman and Meryl Streep). Besides having that trusting John Cusack smirk, Greenberg still hasn’t proved that his acting abilities can go very far. Other faces include Laura Prepon (Donna from That 70’s Show) and Geoff Stults (7th Heaven). Greenberg’s character gets constant grief from his gang of friends since his author name changed to formal Nicholson from friendly Nick. (Note to self: to avoid ‘sold-out’ status by friends and family always use a shorter version of first name.) The most interesting thing Nick’s friends do as a hobby, besides each raising kids, is play in an air guitar band at an agoraphobic’s house. What Rosenberg is missing is the use of the small, original details which he’s tied into this conventional story. Though there aren’t that many of them (see above) there is still material that can be used to make the plot less dry.
It’s hard to say what’s worse about this show – the acting or the pacing of each drawn-out scene. The dramatic energy is too forced and built up too fast while character development is just too slow. For a pilot, the show hastily assumes that we should somehow know the characters and be already familiar with them. Even before the first commercial break the storyline felt like that awkward middle part of a movie where you can’t seem to remember the beginning and the ending can’t even be fathomed. Watching these stumbling characters is like being forced to talk to a complete stranger after being told you’re talking to your best friend of ten years: you want to know everything about this person and feel at ease with them, but there’s this constant feeling of removed discomfort that never feels quite right.
Greenberg can relate to October Road easily since both are searching for success that no audience can offer them right now. Rosenberg has officially left his talent for writing relatable characters in the nineties. The previews created high hopes for this midseason show, but after the first episodes it’s clear that this show didn’t start off in the right direction. Hopefully, the writers and directors will have time to pull over and get some kind of navigation before the big guys upstairs pull the plug. Who knows, maybe they haven’t heard of GPS yet.
GRADE: C-