new show review: quarterlife
February 29th, 2008 by screenwriterguy
So… will a struggling writer and blogger living in Culver City enjoy a show about a struggling writer and blogger living in Culver City? If that show is by the creative team behind My So-Called Life and The Last Samurai? If it features a lot of pretty-but-realistic smart girls?
Are these rhetorical questions?
quarterlife (sic) follows a group of cohabitating artists, one of whom starts video blogging her observations on the personal lives of her friends. Naturally, each comes tearing home to demand to know how she could do such a thing. (This is why ScreenwriterGuy blogs anonymously, people!) We watch subplots in which characters deal with the frustrations of making art into career, and we witness the unfolding of a messy love rectangle (pentagon?) There is promise of character depth and serious interpersonal chemistry, but it is nascent. Still, if the other ingredients are not yet mature, quarterlife does seem to smell of that undefinable, angst-driven component that made shows like Wonderfalls, Freaks & Geeks, and My So-Called Life stand out, in my book.
Of course, I just named three series that lasted less than a season…
When I remember My So-Called Life, I think of a show with a chaotic, angst-driven storyline, the imperfection of which was part of what made it perfect. quarterlife (sic) magnificently offers the same feelings, from a decade further down the road of life. And while we’ve seen a million different combinations of the group of twentysomething bohemians making their way, and while some quarterlife scenes revolving around that premise are as tired as they were a million times before, overall this show gets the tone right.
Best aspect: The love-hate dynamic between the two male leads, filmmaking friends and business partners who also happen to love the same girl, if to varying degrees. While sometimes a bit too on-the-nose, their natural split into artist/director and business/producer will never fail to deliver conflict.
Worst aspect: A tie between the cliche acting teacher screaming at a protagonist about how she just doesn’t get it and the cliche boss stealing a protagonist’s idea at work.
Verdict: I like it. While quarterlife threatens to be a bit too soapy, it’s tone is much more true-to-life than most television drama, and it’s artsy grit should overpower any soapy aftertaste. This is the first show in a while that I will go out of my way to watch, at least for a few more episodes. (Although you can tell I’m past my own quarterlife, as I would prefer to watch it on TV that go to quarterlife.com, or <shudder> watch it on myspace.)
Odds of success: I think it will attract a small but faithful audience, but ultimately fail on network television. OK, I cheated on that prediction. quarterlife drew only a few million viewers, and in just the few days it took me to get around to pulling it off my DVR, NBC has already reprogrammed it for Bravo instead.
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