First Impressions – Reunion

When the fall lineups were announced a couple months ago, Reunion didn’t really catch my eye. It was on at the same time as a perennial favorite of my, Everwood, and even worse, it was on Fox. And since I have morals, I tend to avoid all the Fox channels, the only current exceptions being Rescue Me and Arrested Development. But the more I learned about the show, the more I found it intriguing. The series would take places over twenty year, each episode focusing on a singular year starting with the high school graduation of six friends and culminates at the twentieth reunion which just happens to coincides with of death by one of the six at the hands of another. Another sticking point foe me was the cast included cast members from past shows I liked like the electro-girl from Angel and Meg’s older brother from American Dreams.

But intriguing premises don’t always translate into good shows as seen last year with Jack and Bobby, a show that looked good on paper, but they ruined the show in the very first episode. As for Reunion’s first episode, it started out in the present day funeral of an unknown person and quickly transitioned back to 1986 and graduation. The show quickly built up not one, but two love triangles. This also rapidly sets up motives for murder. But really all the plot twists in the first episodes were extremely predictable.

In the cast, electro-girl and J.J. are joined by the Ugly-Hot Chick that deserved to mocked in Not Another Teen Movie, two no named dudes and, of course, a Token Hot Chick. It became apparent quite early that the actors were cast upon looked because the first episode had some of the worst acting I’ve seen in a long time. The show also must think the viewer is not too bright, which would make sense because it is Fox, so it went to extreme measures to remind us that this was 1986, so there was a constant stream of 80’s music. Also the token hot chick was giving the task of wearing the Madonna gear. Then there was the preppy dude couldn’t decide if he wanted to evoke Don Johnson on Miami Vice or Tom Cruise in Risky Business, so he’d just alternated between the two every other scene. They went seriously overboard with the, “Wham! is the next Beatles” comparison and even took it a step further comparing the dude not named George Michaels to John Lennon. Now when Adam Sandler said, “Get out of my Van Halen t-shirt before you jinx the band and they break up” in The Wedding Singer, that was funny because it was a comedy. Do it in a drama, and it’s just cheesy.

Predictions:
- By the time we hit the 90’s, the two love triangles will have morphed into a love hexagon.
- Even more in jokes including how Vanilla Ice will go down as the greatest rapper ever and how the Red Sox will never win the World Series. The wardrobe will transition into Hammer pants then flannel shirts.
- Who dies: The nerdy virgin
- Who is the murderer: The Token Hot Chick
- Why: Nerdy dude gets too obsessive and the Token Hot Chick kills him in a moment of self defense.

Verdict: Poor acting, predictable plot lines, but considering whenever I’m flipping through channels and come across I Love the 80’s/90’s on VH1, I’ll sit and watch it, I’ll be checking out Reunion every week.