PILOT REVIEW: My Generation

MY GENERATION

Starring: Michael Stahl-David, Jaime King, Kelli Garner, Keir O'Donnell, Mehcad Brooks, Daniella Alonso, Julian Morris, Sebastian Sozzi, Anne Son, Elizabeth Keener

Based on the Swedish Television Series "Blomstertid"
Teleplay by Noah Hawley
Directed by Craig Gillespie

My Generation is a new ABC mockumentary with a unique premise. In the year 2000, nine seniors at a Texas high school were followed around by a camera crew and talked about their lives, their hopes, and their dreams. Now it's ten years later and the film crew has caught up with the nine students to see how they are as adults - how they've changed, their broken dreams, their new lives. The kids were all the high school stereotypes - overachiever Steven (Michael Stahl-David), brainiac Brenda (Daniella Alonso), jock Rolly (Mehcad Brooks), punk Dawn (Kelli Garner), beauty queen Jackie (Jaime King), rich kid Anders (Julian Morris), nerd Kenneth (Keir O'Donnell), rock star Falcon (Sebastian Sozzi), and wallflower Caroline (Anne Son).

I wanted to like this show, I really did. Even when I saw the bad reviews I still had some hope because I thought it was a unique and interesting premise. But it's bad. It's really bad - maybe the worst of the new season. I can't think of a show that has been more contrived. These people don't even seem real - from their fake shock at the camera crew and what they were like 10 years ago ("wow that's right but then the world changed so dramatically after high school") to the all too convenient way that they were all brought back together right at the right time. It started bad and got worse. The writing is bad, the acting is bad, and it comes off awkward. Plus, isn't it convenient that every major event of the 2000s seemed to directly impact one of these nine Texas high school students? I'm not going to detail each cast member, they were all bad.

This may not be the first cancellation of the young season but it should be. The premise deserved better, it could have been a unique and different show unlike anything on TV. But it failed spectacularly. Instead, it's a melodramatic drama that has a weird gimmick. The characters are supposed to resemble factions of a population but they don't even come across as real people. It's bad, it's very bad. Stay away!