Summerland ongoing thread (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Sun]

The 2-hour premiere for WB's Summerland is on tonight (6/1/04). It stars Lori Laughlin (Full House fame), and Merrin Dungey (Francie on Alias), and many new faces.

Its premise reads like the plot synopsis of "Raising Helen: The TV show".

 

[BrandonT]

I will give it a chance - Lori Loughlin is too good to pass up.

 

[Chad R]

It's good to know that optimism isn't dead.

 

[Chris Hicks]

I haven't watched this yet so would anyone care to give me some opinions on if I should or not?

 

[Daniel`D]

I liked it. I hope it last awhile.

 

[Jesse Blacklow]

It looked good in theory, but boy was I fooled. Someone over at TWoP (which picked it up for recapping) described it as "The O.C." meets "Everwood". More like the bad parts of both combined with "7th Heaven"'s over-the-top schmaltziness and preachy attitude.

-The little boy's morbid interest as a reaction to his parent's deaths was too contrived. Why didn't his aunt pull him aside and talk to him about the concept of death? Oh, that's right, because there's heaven to worry about. Well, that certainly worked well.

-I'm not ashamed to say I wanted to punch the (preteen? teenage) girl. First she comes across as the prissy, I-get-what-I-want type pre-parent smashing. Then she turns into this holier-than-thou type with a huge mommy complex and a total lack of respect for anyone else's feelings, space, or problems. Why they gave her that much leeway is beyond me. And her transformation to glamour girl at the end? Way to set back formation of a healthy self-image there. Wait, who am I fooling, it's a girl on an Aaron Spelling show.

-Ah, the old "teen getting stumbling drunk off two beers" ploy. It certainly fits well with the inappropriate longing for a relationship with the surf instructor. Although it's never made clear which relationship is more inappropriate--the kid's or the Aussie roomate's--because they can't decide to portray her as a older teenager or twentysomething. It's pretty stupid either way, although I'll admit she's pretty hot.

Overall, a waste of time. This show has no idea of where it's going or what it wants to be, which is kind of the point of a pilot, especially a two-hour one. I think Spelling got scared that the other Fox and WB teen shows were stealing the thunder, and he needed to get it back. Dude, give us another "Charlie's Angels" instead. I give this show, at most, the ten episodes WB picked up.

 

[BrandonT]

The writing was bad.

The little kid was horrible.

The music wasn't that good.

Thankfully - Lori Loughlin is still hot.

 

[Patrick Sun]

I absolutely hated the daughter. Oh man, I was so close to not making it through the entire 2 hour premiere.

The surf "instructor" was nice eye candy.

Nice to see the love of Barbara Gordon (on Birds of Prey) found work on another WB show as Johnny.