Parenthood
Parenthood Review
There’s a popular saying that the mark of a great TV show is that it dares you to reject it. The most ambitious dramas repel their audiences or confuse or give them nightmares about bodies dissolving. But if you hold too tightly to that bias, you’ll miss out on an equally delightful television—the talky, heartfelt, yet surprisingly nuanced style of a show like Parenthood. A sprawling, multigenerational ensemble series, Parenthood might look, to someone who had seen only flashes in passing, like a soap opera, suspiciously overstocked with sequences of family members dancing in the kitchen. Yet it’s one of only two great dramas on network television. Week after week, Parenthood, risks corniness, tiptoes up to the edge of conventionality, then delivers real emotion. Its strength is arguably as valuable as the ability of other series to agitate their fans: it manages to be warm, even sentimental, without being dumb.
In this respect, the show is not alone. There’s a quiet a lot of similar sitcoms on network television, the best among them being Parks and Recreation. But Parenthood, since it’s a one-hour drama, can go deeper with its characters, mixing humor and pathos with a free hand. In 1996, there was the short-lived “Relativity.” Parenthood is still hanging in there on the network, but its season order was cut from twenty-two episodes to eighteen. (Etkin, Jaimie)
If it gets cancelled, I may never recover. The show has become stronger with each season, and ever more adroit at handling an ensemble so big and baggy that even the Waltons might have been intimidated. Parenthood focuses on the Braverman family, sixty-something Zeek and Camille and their four adult children: Adam, Julia, Sarah, and Crosby. There’s also Adam’s wife, Kristina; Julia’s husband, Joel; Crosby’s ex, Jasmine; plus seven children, ranking in age from a newborn baby to an eighteen-year-old girl. The show is best known for the groundbreaking treatment of eleven-year-old Max,
There’s a popular saying that the mark of a great TV show is that it dares you to reject it. The most ambitious dramas repel their audiences or confuse or give them nightmares about bodies dissolving. But if you hold too tightly to that bias, you’ll miss out on an equally delightful television—the talky, heartfelt, yet surprisingly nuanced style of a show like Parenthood. A sprawling, multigenerational ensemble series, Parenthood might look, to someone who had seen only flashes in passing, like a soap opera, suspiciously overstocked with sequences of family members dancing in the kitchen. Yet it’s one of only two great dramas on network television. Week after week, Parenthood, risks corniness, tiptoes up to the edge of conventionality, then delivers real emotion. Its strength is arguably as valuable as the ability of other series to agitate their fans: it manages to be warm, even sentimental, without being dumb.
In this respect, the show is not alone. There’s a quiet a lot of similar sitcoms on network television, the best among them being Parks and Recreation. But Parenthood, since it’s a one-hour drama, can go deeper with its characters, mixing humor and pathos with a free hand. In 1996, there was the short-lived “Relativity.” Parenthood is still hanging in there on the network, but its season order was cut from twenty-two episodes to eighteen. (Etkin, Jaimie)
If it gets cancelled, I may never recover. The show has become stronger with each season, and ever more adroit at handling an ensemble so big and baggy that even the Waltons might have been intimidated. Parenthood focuses on the Braverman family, sixty-something Zeek and Camille and their four adult children: Adam, Julia, Sarah, and Crosby. There’s also Adam’s wife, Kristina; Julia’s husband, Joel; Crosby’s ex, Jasmine; plus seven children, ranking in age from a newborn baby to an eighteen-year-old girl. The show is best known for the groundbreaking treatment of eleven-year-old Max,