One of our favorite fan blogs, Siskoid’s Blog of Geekery, comes through with a review of a series most of us here at TVWriter™ would have to admit that we not only haven’t seen, we also haven’t heard of.
The series is on Netflix, a place that fascinates us because not only does it do what, you know, we all expect a streaming media site to do, it also write the best series loglines on the interwebs. You know, like this:
Twenty years after graduation, a tight-knit group of college friends reconnects and discovers that love hasn’t gotten easier with age.
What the logline doesn’t say is something IMDB does: “A group of friends from Harvard are facing down their forties.” And, yeppers, that Harvard thing is what kept this TVWriter™ minion from ever clicking Friends from College on. Because…well, what the hell do I care about spoiled, entitled Harvard grads?
After reading the following review of Season 2, however, I’m thinking I’ll at least give this baby a try:
by Siskoid’s
I was, on the whole, pretty negative about the first season of Friends from College, but I seemed to have forgotten that as I more or less marathoned Season 2. (In stark contrast to the second season of Salvation that I uncharacteristically dropped after 3 episodes because the writing is so horrible, despite my being fairly positive about the first.)
I guess 8 half-hours are a lot easier to invest in than longer series.
I’m still a little ambivalent about the whole thing and the way it juggles real drama and sitcom plots, but I think I get it now. The whole point is that people change (thus the “from college” title), may be sympathetic one season, and unlikable the next.
All these characters are flawed, but I think I kind of like them for it.
Bonus points for adding Zack Robidas to the cast as a random boyfriend; his reactions and way with physical comedy are rather fun.
Sarah Chalke, however, gets a more thankless role. Anyway, I guess I’m willingly following the characters’ best attempt to destroy their own lives….