Britt's On

I have to say, I’m disappointed that Life Unexpected has more or less sounded its death knell. Even moreso when you consider the terrible epilogue they tacked onto a fantastic two-hour special (which, when promoted back in December, triggered a red alert for me). I actually would have been MORE okay to have things end with Cate’s cliffhanger announcement – “Julia’s pregnant after all!” – than be flashforwarded two years into the future with Lux inexplicably ending up with Jones, Baze and Cate linked after all (after an episode that really solidified once again that Ryan is a great guy), Ryan with Julia (out of what…obligation?), and randomly Math and preggers co-worker of Cate’s that was MIA for the entire season.

I will attempt to deconstruct this to at least marginally defend the show. Lux and Jones ending up together is probably a product of the show not wanting to introduce a random new romantic interest for Lux, plus they did play at some sort of relationship redeveloping between them during the basketball scene / visit to Tash. I could see there being a triangle drama in future seasons, but ultimately I think the show never hit its stride in finding a proper match for Lux (WAY too much time spent on impossible romance with Eric “Minnesota” this season), which really hurt it. Since the show often draws comparisons to Gilmore Girls, consider how that show really gained some traction with their audiences through Rory’s tortured romances with Dean, Jess, and Logan (and Tristan to a degree). Lux’s hard-headedness about romance was grating, and considering her choices were all wrong I was just frustrated with her.

Cate and Baze. Well okay. I liked their ‘what if’ romantic tension, their unrequited love at various points, but it’s just that – I liked the tension and wasn’t really interested in seeing them live happily ever after. Namely because the show works quite hard (and quite well) at showing us what a stand-up guy Ryan is, especially in the last episode where he gets Cate’s job back for her. I’m not saying I don’t lurve Baze, because I do, but I moreso enjoyed the unspoken tension between them. Ryan and Julia would have created an interesting thorn in everyone’s sides – I could see Ryan slowly falling for Julia while helping her with the baby…but I really wanted Cate & Ryan to work out. Again, especially when you see Ryan AT Lux’s grad, and her mention that he stuck around when he didn’t need to. Adore.

Do I understand why the creators tacked the epilogue on? Yes. Did I like it? No. Could I have lived without it? Yes. Although I see the possibility of the final match-ups outlined in the epilogue, I was literally shellshocked by the whole thing, and have spent far too much going “WTF how did that happen?” than I care to detail here.

Moreso, I’m sad that LUX is gone. It really was a refreshing change of pace from the too-soapy Gossip Girl and too-boring One Tree Hill, although my new favourite ‘YA’ show these days is Pretty Little Liars, which seems to have the story-weaving capabilities of Lost (sadly) in terms of keeping you guessing and on edge. PLL is fantastic at crafting dramatic tension, but still kind of falling flat in the character / relationship-building department. I rarely care about anyone the four core characters interact with (other than to quip ‘Maybe THEY’RE A!’) but this has become my must-watch of the week.

Reality shows are rebooting right away, including a new Amazing Race All Stars (in hi-def, finally) and Survivor, with four-timer Rob and three-timer Russell. I’m a little Russell-fatigued, although the game always becomes more interesting when you ask yourself – “There’s no way they can make it to the end when they’ve already played. Can they?” (See: Stephenie in Guatemala, Parvati and Russell in Heroes vs. Villains).

- Britt's On

We’re in the home stretch for a bunch of shows at this point, with the last few episodes burning off in the weeks before Christmas. Here’s my mid-season (or ‘end of season’ report card for each show):

Gossip Girl – the show has proven itself outside of the trappings of attending ‘school’, which limited them in the first two seasons, but it still suffers from way too much ‘lightswitch flipping’ where the character’s relationships – friends or otherwise – are way too on again, off again. The big storylines of the season are kind of flops: Juliet feels way too old and the show will never takedown Serena, Dan the baby daddy was a short-lived catastrophe (PS: we need more Dan!), and the fact that costars Blake Lively and Penn Badgley have broken up in real-life makes the show a little bit…well, par for the course.
Grade: B-

Life Unexpected – I’ve quite enjoyed this season, despite it still not quite living up to its potential. Bringing Tash in as a less bedraggled version of her S1 self was wise, although the addition of Ryan’s sister Paige has really done nothing for his character or the show. Exploring Ryan & Cate’s bigger relationship issues is important, but I didn’t like the random Julia storyline. I didn’t love the ‘Minnesota’ storyline, although the tangled mess its made and the introduction of Sam (of Degrassi fame) seems promising. Also major props for bringing in Emma Caulfield, who I can never disassociate as Anya from Buffy, but she makes a surprisingly sweet and interesting match for Baze. Theory: Emma (it’s her name on the show) mentioned early on she had a four-year relationship with a married man. I guessed immediately her hesitation towards Baze was the fact it was with his father, and his dad’s bizarre reactions during the Thanksgiving episode make me thing this is the unsurprising bombshell the creators are going to drop sooner rather than later. But I like Emma! And Sam! Come on guys!
Grade: B+

One Tree Hill – Oh god why do I still watch this show? I used to joke with my sister about how terrible the first two seasons were, then I accepted OTH into my life when it peaked from Seasons 3 to 5 (debatably parts of 6 were decent) as a slower-paced character study. Now? It’s just terrible. I find myself often fast-forwarding the scenes with Quinn and Clay (although the latter is hot) because I can’t stand them and their random interjection into the series’ regulars. I also find that the chemistry the original leads has it lacking – they’ve built little worlds around each of the main characters for them to live in, but I miss seeing them together. The rare scenes between Haley and Brooke or Nathan and Mouth are among the best. Also it seems at least one storyline per episode is totally effing pointless – see: the treasure hunt with Quinn & Jamie last season, or the bucket list for Brooke this past week. This show just feels like it has completely lost the plot, and the only reason I’ve had to justify watching it for seasons 7 and 8 was to ‘see how it ends’. So OTH – END IT.
Grade: D

Parenthood – Probably my favourite scripted show at the moment. The interesting thing about Parenthood is that, like OTH, it doesn’t really have an ‘end game’ in mind, but yet it works so much better. The events of the show follow relatively realistic timelines and in many cases, there are no easy answers or hasty resolutions to the storylines (ex: Max’s aspergers, Camille and Zeke’s marital strain). The show is still a little sprawling for its own good – we need more Mae Whitman! – but in general I get really excited when I see this on my PVR.
Grade: A-

America’s Next Top Model – An interesting season in that Tyra’s guest stars and challenges and prizes much more reflected the never-ending theme of ‘high end’. The build-up of Ann kind of sort of made sense, and I’m glad they saw it through, but I’m sceptical about her real-world adaptability (i.e. will she be able to stomach rejection? Will she be able to do commercial work?). Overall a positive direction for the show to go in, here’s hoping they keep it up.
Grade: B+

Survivor – I know a lot of people are kind of at odds with this season. In some ways the cast has been pretty unlikable – there’s no ‘heroes’ in this bunch to root for like JT of Tocantins – but they’ve also been pretty memorable. Jimmy Johnson, Jimmy T, NaOnka, Marty, Alina, Brenda – all of them have been more notable players than many others eliminated before the final three. I haven’t minded this season, but it’s not one of their strongest – the game changers were eliminated early on (to be fair, in game-changing moves) and with the big quitfest this past week, it kind of sucks that happened. I’d have loved for Jimmy J to have stayed on longer. Overall I’m curious to see how this season ends though – everyone left is NOT who I would have picked in the beginning to go all the way.
Grade: B

The Office – The show has really lost its footing in the last few years, feeling increasingly gimmicky and contained versus long-term storylines, whether they be office-related (like the multiple season implosion of Dunder Mifflin) or character-related (hello romantic storylines). There have been some laughs this season, but overall its kind of par for the course of the latter Office seasons.
Grade: B

Saturday Night Live - Oh woe is me at how bad this show has gotten. The writing is terrible, the sketches wayyyy too-oft repeated, and the reliance on Kristen Wiig painful. I have no words, other than to say, Lorne Michaels, give me a call if you want something good to happen with your show. I'm at the point now where I analyze every sketch to say "That wasn't funny. That was terrible. What were they thinking?" versus actually just enjoying it and laughing.
Grade: D-

The Amazing Race – There’s no way an all-female team won’t win at this point. At least that’s my theory. Although fact, despite the fact they keep on winking at the fact one of the final three teams could MAKE HISTORY re: all females, lest we forget during the All Stars season two of the final teams there were females-only as well, and the Franken-team of Danielle and Eric nabbed the win. This season has been kind of lacklustre, as the format gets tired – I’m hoping the rumours about another All Star edition or a celebrity edition are true, as I’d love to see them shake things up a bit. I felt like Brook and Claire were shoved down our throats as the rah rah team to cheerlead for (double sidenote: no team that has used the U-Turn has ever won the show to my knowledge, so in theory, B&C are going to win), while the doctors, while admirable, are kind of boring. I’m not asking for buckets of drama, but a little more enthusiasm and a lot less restraint would make this team easier to root for. Jill and Thomas are just your typical cute, cocky, young couple that tends to excel on this show. I kind of like them, but I’m also rooting for an all female team to win – it sucks that an otherwise likable (if unmemorable team) is kind of being cast as the villains this season. In fact, the belief that I have that this will happen is the main thing that elevates this season’s grade.
Grade: B

- Britt's On

I knocked out two more season premieres last night, and here are my thoughts:

Survivor: Nicaragua
After two all star-ish seasons across five seasons (16 and 20 respectively), it was nice to see a fresh cast of characters with some potential to be memorable. Survivor's stumbling block in the last few all-new cast years has been poor casting, and that is a massive part of that show, especially as it carries onto its 21st season! Samoa had one of the worst casts in history, with Russell as the breakout star over two tribes of idiots and mannequins (save for Shambo, although I wasn't much of a fan). Tocantins, well, it was nice to see the good guy win and Coach alone kind of made the season, but in general this season was a snooze because everyone handed JT the win. Gabon had a pretty unlikable cast and villainized the most interesting people in my books, but it had its moments.

As for Survivor Nicaragua? I'm tentatively optimistic about this season:
- Well for one, Jimmy Johnson added some star power that ruffled many feathers on the show. I'm interested to see how he plays out.
- Technically speaking Thailand was not divided by old vs. young, but the way the tribe leaders selected their tribemates it ended up that way. The only other time they've done old vs. young is Danielle's 'Exile Island' season which had four initial tribes - old men, old women, young men, young women. Interestingly the final four had one representative from each group, and a young male took home the prize. The difference this time is there is a ten-year age gap between the young guns and the old folks, while before several Survivors (such as Cirie) commented they felt more in tune with a different group than the one they were assigned to.
- The medallion of powahhhh has one of the cheesiest titles of all time and felt a bit gimmicky, although the choice it provided the survivors in the beginning and the fact it will be cycled back and forth (potentially) between the teams throughout the season makes it an intriguing experiment for this season at least. I agreed with the old folks choice to not use it this time, not only because the reward wasn't as great as the producers intended (read Jeff Probst's blog on EW.com), but also because this wasn't an incredibly physical challenge, which is where they'll need more help.
- I'm intrigued by how the first clues to the hidden immunity idol were presented this season. For one, does that mean those two girls will always have to go get tree mail to ensure they are the only ones to get additional clues? Or will additional clues be rolled out in different ways, causing suspicions to arise as the contestants try to figure out how else has a piece of the puzzle? I can definitely see how Russell's domination of idol snatching came into play when rejigging the idol thing. For another, did anyone on the other tribe get a clue yet? If not, why? The young girls got the clue *before* the immunity challenge so it's not like it was a reward for winning. Was it because they didn't have the medallion of powahhhh? Curious.
- I have no early favourites, but I enjoyed watching a celebrity in the midst of the Survivors. It also inspired me to think up a few Survivor casting twists for the future, although I thoroughly get that a big part of the show is tied to the idea of 'group of strangers thrown together - make it work!' (or am I just mixing up my reality show catch phrases now?)


Moving on to Life Unexpected, The CW's new-ish sweet family drama about a teenager whose parents gave her up for adoption until she was reunited with them through the courts at 16. When we last left the LUX cast, Base realized he had feelings for Cate and tired to break up her wedding, Ryan and Cate went through with said wedding, and Lux was sort of caught in the middle of her two fathers. The season opener shook things up and provided some short and long-term threads for the show, some expected, some not so much. General thoughts:
- Cate getting sacked from the radio station wasn't entirely unexpected. Knowing all about the radio biz (and hearing the boyfriend continually gripe during this week's episode 'NEVER DATE SOMEONE YOU WORK WITH IN RADIO') I was expecting some sort of career friction to break their happy union. I'm not loving the Bree Van De Kamp-esque replacement and her obvious lusting after Ryan, but perhaps they can define her character to be less of a caricature and more of a foil to Ryan & Cate
- Cate being fired and Base having to rebuild the bar...I'm sensing the two of them having a lot of free time will have an impact on their respective relationships.
- I'm not a fan of removing Allison, even though her character was a bit underdeveloped. She provided (along with Cate's understandably MIA sister) an outlet for Cate to talk about what was going on in her life. Without her, I'm worried Cate will become as two-dimensional as Ryan seemed other than the scenes he had with Lux.
- On the introduction of Paige: well, I thought it was a bit contrived for her not to be at last season's wedding (a mere two weeks ago by the show's timeline) regardless of her character's free-spirited adventurer persona, but I am intrigued because A) Base knows she's responsible for the fire and had a steamy night with her, and B) Last season I specifically talked about how Ryan really needed someone in 'his world' in the same way Cate had Allison and her sister and Base had his roomies, while Ryan really only shined and was given dimension in his scenes with Lux. The introduction of Paige - however radically different she is from her brother and the fact she's already intertwined in their story - provides a platform for us to see more of Ryan.
- Ryan and this mysterious Julia I think it was, gifter of fancy-looking vases. Again I felt it was a tad contrived to throw us for a mysterious loop, but as the same time I felt like there really WAS a dead zone last season where we didn't know just what Ryan was up to. And quite frankly if he hooked up with someone during that time, when he was referring to 'Cate not knowing anything', I wouldn't blame him. I'm glad he has his own little plotline to unwind though.
- Yay for the potential end of Lux and Bug. After two misguided romantic leads last season, I was surprised the writers threw another challenging relationship at Lux in the form of a new teacher (not even playing the student teacher card, wow) who she recently shared some smooches with. I don't know how long this will last for but I hope the show hits a stride when it comes to finding Lux a suitable mate for the audience to fall in love with - the best episodes of Gilmore Girls often centred on Rory's romantic relationships (Dean! Jess! Tristan! Logan!), but I feel like the show hasn't hit on who exactly Lux should be with. I guess when the right fictional relationship comes along it'll be that much sweeter next to these duds.

Overall I thought this was a solid season premiere in terms of setting up tons of drama for the season to come. Sometimes I worry that Life Unexpected has set the Cate/Base 'destined to be together' bar a bit too high too soon, especially since they've made Ryan a relatively appealing alternative so far, but I have faith the show will continue to tangle and untangle their feelings for one another for quite some time.

Two solid season premieres, and just a handful more to go!

I don’t want to talk about Lost anymore. I have alternating feelings of contentment and furious frustration…I guess I’m not as invested in the show in some ways because I really only invested a year and a half of guessing and wanting answers, unlike the poor saps that first started watching the series in 2004. I also generally enjoyed the series enough that although the ending was far from satisfying, it didn’t totally ruin the show for me…until I start taking what’s revealed (or not) in the finale and applying it to my unanswered questions from the entire series and coming up short. Way short.

What was that about being done talking about Lost? Oh right. Well my PVR is blissfully nearly empty, other than the last run of Parenthood episodes (I’m about 5 or 6 behind), a few of TSN’s great 30 for 30 documentaries for the boyfriend, and a few more installments of the incredible ‘Life’ series currently airing on Discovery. A few of my perennial summer shows are starting next week – Little Couple! Toddlers & Tiaras! – to keep me entertained between my movie project and finally finishing Arrested Development…but I can’t help but think of next fall.

So far, none of the prospects for fall 2010 are enticing to me. I’m sure Entertainment Weekly will have an excellent fall TV preview issue that may make me reconsider, but as someone feeling more tapped into the biz these days (I blame it on the aforementioned subscription) I watched the fall scheduling carefully and was mostly disappointed. If anything, I want to shed a few shows off my weekly viewing. In some cases the decision has been made for me – bye Lost & Flashforward! - In others, the decline of some long-time favourites has led me to seriously contemplate deleting them off my PVR.


Namely, Desperate Housewives. I lamented the death of Edie a year ago, and the show has continued to spiral down. Whenever they so much as mention season 1, whether through Rex Van de Kamp’s illegitimate devil spawn or the obligatory Mary Alice Young flashback, I wince at how far the show has fallen. Season 1 of DH was an inspired, satirical take on suburbia. They eschewed the term ‘soap opera’ saying it reminded them of bad lighting and serial drama (especially for daytime soap starlet Eva Longoria). After a stumble in season 2 the series came back around, but it never fully rebounded from the Applewhite horror. Now the show is a parody of itself, with words like ‘madcap hijinks’ springing to mind when I describe the current plotlines.

The over the top drama of the last couple of years in particular (take this season’s horrid ‘mysterious new resident’ yarn re: Angie the eco-terrorist as a key example) has even seemed to take its toll on the actors that once made this show what it was. Felicity Huffman’s strangled delivery of lines while her newborn baby was being strangled by an umbilical cord in the midst of being held hostage by the season’s serial neighbourhood strangler pretty much made me want to throw a book at Felicity’s head and tell her to ask to get written off the show. Career suicide!

While Teri Hatcher moving off the lane because she couldn’t pay her bills was an inspired (however randomly handled – where is Susan’s strip club money???) reflection of the real issues in suburbia these days, the show is notorious for wiping the slate clean and I don’t anticipate this will be a particularly permanent set-up.

The final nail in the coffin for me with the finale was the big cliffhanger – someone’s child isn’t really their child. Oh the possibilities with that one…none of which I care about. This is a classic soap opera gag, and not one I care to see on my weekly primetime supposed sharp-eyed satire on suburban living. Between plane crashes, tornadoes, bombs, and stranglers…I’ve had it with Desperate Housewives and will be deleting the program from my PVR. I threatened to do it at the start of this season, and nothing that happened this year convinced me to do otherwise.


The other big red alert for me when it comes to ‘Should I stay or should I go?’ is how much I anticipate watching the show. Reality series obviously have the best advantage here because the potential for spoilers is dramatically higher. But there are a number of scripted shows I watch that also demanded my attention this year – Lost of course, and also (surprisingly) Life Unexpected. While I would let episodes of Gossip Girl (still amusing enough to keep watching), One Tree Hill (if it doesn’t end this season I might delete it for a follow-up season), and Saturday Night Live pile up, I couldn’t get enough of LUX. I tend to champion one series each year (Mad Men! FNL!) and I think I may purchase S1 of Life Unexpected just to convert more people to my cause.



Another show that’s on the bubble? Parenthood. I picked it up to watch my beloved Lauren Graham in action once again, and I’ve been meaning to blog on it for about a month now but um, I’m pretty behind as mentioned. I’ll give the point form version of that entry. Watching Parenthood is like watching the Cameron Crowe movie ‘Elizabethtown’. Not a whole lot happens, you find most of the characters mildly annoying, there’s a guy who works at a shoe company but it doesn’t really factor into his everyday life, and there’s a sweet enough soundtrack and interesting enough character interactions that you actually kind of dig it. Particularly when you have the option to watch episodes in a mini-marathon, as I’ve been doing in chunks over the season.

Here’s my thoughts – I do enjoy the show and crave watching more once I pop an episode in. Peter Krause and Monica Potter drive me batshit crazy with their helicopter parenting and weird suburbanite obsession with their sex lives. Lauren Graham is still adorable but I pine for the days of Gilmore Girls, when her daughter was much cuter. I want Erika Christensen’s husband to have more of a personality and life, and I enjoy the drama related to the slutty zen mom. Craig T’s wife is also a zero on the personality scale, and has zero connection with her children. I surprisingly love Dax Shephard’s storyline with Jabar, although I wonder whether Reed from the OC will ever return.

My conclusion? I will watch the backlog of episodes I have on my PVR before I come to a decision. Parenthood might be too sleepy to compete with my PVR’s 60 gig download limit during peak television season, but I’m not totally sold either way yet.


Another bubble show? Dancing with the Stars. I watched it for the first time this season out of casting curiosity more than anything and generally enjoyed it. Kudos for finally giving Nicole Scherzinger a vibrant, sweet personality compared to her typical vacant demeanour! The show is cheesy, drawn out, anti-climactic, and I fast forward about 45% of each episode, and 95% of each results show…but if the casting is as good as it was this year I will probably tune in again next year. After all, I’m only watching 60% of three stupidly overdrawn hours of weekly programming! Plus, at least the right person won (although many have speculated this is the first season that didn't feel like a high school popularity contest).


One final show in contention for elimination. ANTM. I’m sort of sick of it. I don’t really care about whether the models succeed after the show…I’m just kind of done with the format of the show in general, I feel like it reached its creative peak a long, long time ago and doesn’t really have anything to offer me. Someone I’ve really liked from the beginning hasn’t won in something like 7 or 8 cycles…that’s probably a sign. Also the fact that I can't for the LIFE of me figure out what this cycle's winner was named and therefore can't post a photo of them...KRISTA! That's her name. Well too damn bad, I just uploaded a generic ol skool photo of Tyra with a sign.

Till then, I’m off to ride into the blissful summer scheduling of one or two shows per week.

Ciao,

B

How clever! I’ve just discovered that Life Unexpected, the new CW show, can be conveniently shortened into LUX, the name of the main young character. Anyway, all my online searching has turned up the following: that although LUX wasn’t doing spectacularly in the ratings at the end of February, it was performing equally well on the two nights it was aired (on repeat), with new, equal portions of viewers on both nights. Add to that a recent issue of Entertainment Weekly that cited it as one of the Top 20 most downloaded shows (with fellow CW sibling Gossip Girl at the top spot).

Hopefully the CW is wise enough to keep this show around. With the cancellation of Melrose Place certified, there’s a good chance LUX will stick around to plug up that spot, or to complement either One Tree Hill or GG on Monday while the other one is paired with a newcomer in place of MP.

Anyway, I have to say, LUX has quickly become one of my favourite new shows, although it’s not without its problems. I feel like I have written this post in here somewhere, but yet I don’t have a Life Unexpected tag…so I can’t have.

The most interesting thing about a show like LUX is that it appeals to a pretty vast demographic – truth be told, the more interesting dynamics of the show come from the adults, which are conveniently young thirty-somethings. But you still have storylines featuring young Lux, which allow us past-high-schoolers to indulge in some high school drama that we all still kind of crave.

It is snappily written with actually laugh out loud funny delivery, comic timing, and jokes – but it’s also very good at pulling on the heartstrings and making you have serious emotional reactions of nerves, excitement, and shock. It’s also got an interesting cast of characters that rotate in and out on a weekly basis (similar to the awesome township casting of Gilmore Girls).

That being said, there are a few things that need to be ironed out. For one, they need to make Lux a little less desperately whiny (enough with the hand wringing!) and give her some storylines of her own, beyond the trite Bug/Jones triangle. Neither one of these guys really fits with the Lux character we know, so why not let her start from scratch. Introduce a new guy to the mix next season – perhaps another bad boy with a heart of gold a la Jess on Gilmore Girls, to compete with the bad boy she currently prefers, Bug.

We also need to give Ryan a little more depth. I’m actually on team Cate & Ryan, but I enjoy a pining Baze. Ryan’s best scenes, by far, are the ones where we get to seem him open up outside of his tenuous scenes with Cate. Those scenes take place with Lux, and the two of them have a sweet, more realistic father/daughter bond than Lux and Baze. It would be nice to see more of Ryan’s world – who were those groomsmen at his wedding? – outside of the Lux/Cate/Baze world, especially if things continue to be rocky / doomed in that part of his life. We can’t rely on these little Lux windows to continually bring Ryan back from obscured, understandable douchebaggery.

Another problem, likely because of the short season, is the uneven development of the characters outside of our core trio, Ryan being the most glaring example. Baze has a bad relationship with his dad, as demonstrated, but the climactic golf parking lot showdown felt a little…false? We get a lot of the “You always thought I would fail dad!” but it didn’t really give us much insight into why this might be, or where Baze failed, what turning point in his life sent him down his barfly pasture.

Also, in going with my earlier critique of Lux’s boring teen storylines, we really need to have some better character development amongst her circle of friends. I don’t care about Tash or Bug at all right now, nor do I really care to learn more.

There was a hint of high school friendship extensions (which can still be hilariously, competitively done as per that standby, Gilmore Girls) but they were quickly squashed. So Lux should be a million times more miserable at school than she currently is, but because her school life is so boring, we see nothing of it, just her dramatic home life. If you’re going to put her in a bad situation like that, SHOW US. Or come up with a solution. Lux needs compatriots outside of her parentals also.

One final word. Gilmore Girls was about a mother / daughter yes, but in the ways their lives would intersect: family dinners, disagreements about boys, and moments of weakness. Right now LUX is trying to make the relationships between their core trio (+ triangle with Ryan) what the entire show rests on, but for it to be truly successful, we need to build a world around each character, and let their lives intersect naturally. The drama on Gilmore Girls often involved Rory and Lorelei together, but the root cause was often from an outside source from one, or both of their worlds.

That is all, I hope to see a return for this show with some improvements – it has amazing potential and I love the core cast.

- Britt’s On