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Get
Real - Please!
Written
by James Koonce, September 9, 1999
Ah,
the family. That tightly-knit societal cornerstone which fights
and laughs and loves and, if you're lucky, does it in an glib, spunky
way while all the participants are dressed in the latest fashions
and the homestead is fresh from the pages of Architectural Digest.
If you're not lucky, however, don't despair - there are plenty of
ad hoc families you can join from the comfort of your own home,
right on TV!
Family
trials and tribulations are nothing new on the tube, of course,
all the way from the goody-two-shoes domestic woes experienced by
My Three Sons to the ridiculously parent-free adolescent larking
about of the gang on Dawson's Creek. FOX has its share also, including
stalwart prime-time sudser Party of Five, and now its latest
addition Get Real.
Get
Real's Green family is comprised of overworked dad Mitch (Jon
Tenney), underappreciated mom Mary (Debra Farentino), sensitive
and brainy college-bound Meghan (Anne Hathaway), thick-but-popular
elder son Cameron (Eric Olsen), and mildly nerdy younger brother
Kenny (Jesse Eisenberg, who looks a little like Beastie Boy Mike
D probably did as a sophomore). If you're not seeing any surprises
here, that's kind of the point - you're supposed to get real, remember?
This is how normal people are. Or at least how we're being led to
think they are.
In
spite of the moniker, however, I vicariously lived through more
turmoil in the pilot episode, which took place over a couple of
days, than I ever did in my entire high school career. And I'm talking
high melodrama here - Mitch and Mary's sex life is in the dumper
because he's too busy at work trying to close "the deal" (that vague,
businesslike precept which instantly clues us in that he's an ambitious
workaholic) which she shrilly protests; Meghan is in the midst of
a deep, unrelenting existential crisis about whether she should
go to college or not, even though she was just selected as her class
valedictorian; and Kenny just wants to evade his imminent demise
at the hand of the school bully long enough to encounter his first
real boob. Only Cameron seems to be content, God bless him, but
it's because he's too damn dumb to know any better. (Then again,
he also seems to get laid a lot, right under his parents' roof,
which sets Mom off big time and is at least partly responsible for
her uptightness. So maybe he's onto something after all.)
Whew.
I have to say, by the time the first commercial break came, I found
myself grateful for the time off. I'd anxiously anticipated Get
Real since it was first announced, as writer/executive producer
Clyde Phillips had earlier created one of my all-time favorite shows,
Parker Lewis Can't Lose. But what that show had going for
it was a sort of loopy, off-kilter charm, not to mention that, even
though it was similarly about a group of high school students, it
was so forced in its perspective that nothing seemed real. Unlike
here, where everything got so eponymously OVER-real that it became
exhausting to watch. Trouble was, we still got the hyperactive camera
work, exaggerated angles, and aren't-we-clever touches (characters
referencing other TV shows in asides aimed at the camera, for one)
just like on Parker Lewis, only here they didn't enrich the show
or give it style, they just made it annoying - the action never
fit the way we were forced to look at it.
Of
course, also on board the creative team was director Scott Winant,
veteran of thirtysomething and My So-Called Life,
who clearly knows his way around mawkish material (I even caught
Meghan doing a few doleful Claire Danes faces as she histrionically
struggled with her decision to continue on to the hallowed halls
of higher education). I couldn't help but think that Phillips' and
Winant's talents didn't quite fit together, but thankfully in the
second half of the pilot, things calmed down a little and the story
was allowed to move in front of the storytelling. Until the last
ten or so minutes, of course, in which Cameron went to the hospital
after a dramatic car crash, Meghan defiantly announced that she
would not be matriculating at Berkeley in the fall as originally
planned, and Kenny caught the eye of a hot little number who just
moved in next door and coincidentally was in his grade at school
(and who fetchingly wore a black bra under a sheer top). Whoa, wait
a sec - was this supposed to be a two-hour pilot that had its time
slot shortened at the last minute? Where is there left to go for
the rest of the season?
Creator
Phillips clearly has an affinity for the young male voice, and the
pilot worked best when it focused on Kenny trying to navigate the
treacherous waters of high school. Granted, there's a liberal dollop
of Kevin Arnold in every highly-identifiable character like this,
but come on - how do you top The Wonder Years? I say, if
anyone invites the comparison, run with it. Similarly, the weakest
aspect of the premiere was Kenny's parents, curiously closest demographically
to Phillips. (You'd think he'd know the territory better.)
Their
ersatz crisis seemed like something lifted from a Lifetime movie
(you know the ones I mean, claptrap with names like He Pencilled
Her In, or perhaps Page Me When The Baby's Born), underdeveloped
and trite in its very blandness. (The two of them, yearning for
intimacy with one another, actually set up a DATE, for heaven's
sake. How many times have we seen adults fumbling like teenagers
as they struggle to excavate their calcifying sexuality? I think
there should be a moratorium placed on stories involving couples
mired in mid-life crises unless they can solve them in creative
ways, like with vituperative, vengeful affairs or high-caliber handguns.)
Tenney in particular seems uninvested in his role; it's as if he's
saying, "whatever, I'll say the dialogue, but I don't understand
the subtext. I'm married to Teri Hatcher, you know, and when we
wrap today I'm gonna go home and shag like a bunny 'til dawn."
Anyway,
we'll see. Once the show gets into a groove, it's entirely likely
that the artificial conceits will slip away and the characters will
be allowed to grow. I can only hope so, since they've convinced
us so far to Get Real, and it would be nice to try and stay
that way.
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