After seeing the first two ...
Question: After seeing the first two episodes of the season, I just love
Everwood more and more! The end of the second episode left me in tears. This show has the unique ability to be touching and real at the same time. What do you think of this season so far? How do you think it will fare against
CSI? Do you think there is a possibility of it returning to Monday, when it clearly has a better chance of survival?
Answer: Everwood became a personal favorite show of mine last season — I wrote a column declaring it to be TV's best tearjerker — and it's just as strong and moving this year. It is hands-down the best "family" show on TV, with a broad range of sympathetic characters, and the writing and acting continue to improve and shine. I hate that WB moved the show to the overstuffed Thursday night, where it's in danger of getting lost and buried. But it's doing better than anything WB ever put there before, so it's far from a disaster for the network (which is merely looking to generate some business, however small, on Thursdays). But I'm all for moving it back to Mondays now that
Just Legal has been judged as incompatible for this network (anyone could have predicted that). Unfortunately, the first week after
Legal was pulled, WB gave the slot to the woefully cutesy
Related, and I fear that show may eventually inherit the time period. If so, let the jeering begin.
Everwood is good enough to deserve a plum time period, and I hope WB steps up and does its fans a favor.
On another Everwood topic, Kelly writes: "Am I alone in not liking Ephram on Everwood? Maybe it's because I'm a parent myself, but I can't stand the way he treats his father. I couldn't believe he stormed out of the room because his father wouldn't pay rent for him to live in an apartment. Who does he think he is? Andy makes a lot of mistakes (the Madison thing was a whopper), but he doesn't deserve the way Ephram treats him. It seems like there is a trend of unlikable TV characters, but House, for example, can be a complete jerk, but I still love him. For some reason, it doesn't work that way with Ephram. I just want to kick him."
Ah, Ephram. If Everwood does have a flaw, it's making the adolescent characters so self-righteously angsty and precociously adult in attitude (shades of Dawson's Creek) that they often get the last word on the adults or parents. I think we're meant to feel that Ephram often deserves a kick in the pants, and some of the more emotional moments on the show come when Ephram wakes up to what a jerk he has been. I've read the script for a late-October episode when Ephram and Andy go on a camping trip (not easy for city boys!) and take tentative steps toward burying the hatchet. I only hope when Lorelai and Rory on Gilmore Girls take a step toward reconciliation, it will be even half as satisfying.
