'Life Unexpected,'
lots of the expected
This new CW drama vigorously mines all the cliches
By Tom Conroy
Jan 15, 2010
Here’s a wacky new concept for a TV show: There’s this teenage girl, and she’s more sensible and mature than her own mother and father. In fact, sometimes it’s like she’s the parent and they’re the kids!
OK, that’s a little unfair to “Life Unexpected.” The new drama, premiering Monday at 9 p.m. on The CW, does succumb to that old cliché, but it makes up for it with an attractive, likable cast who draw you into the characters’ emotional lives.
What’s more, both the child and the parents have excuses for their unusual maturity or lack thereof. Lux (Brittany Robertson) has been raised in a series of foster homes. Nearing her 16th birthday, she decides to apply to become an emancipated minor and tracks down her birth parents, Baze (Kristoffer Polaha) and Cate (Shiri Appleby), both of whom have been living relatively carefree, separate lives as single people.
The pilot, while the most entertaining of the three episodes the network made available for review, does a lot of heavy lifting to explain how this all happened. Baze, who was the high school quarterback, got brainy Cate pregnant in a one-night stand after a dance; he didn’t know she put their baby up for adoption; and she didn’t know that the baby would end up in foster care.
Lux tells Cate that she was born with a hole in her heart (aww!) and that by the time the surgeries were done, she was an unlikely candidate for adoption.
Further complicating matters, Cate’s talk-radio co-host and secret boyfriend, Ryan (Kerr Smith), is about to ask her to marry him, even though their on-air shtick is all about him mocking her for her desperate single-woman life.
Like that hole in the heart, some of the details cross the line from sentimental to maudlin: For example, though Lux didn’t know until recently that Cate was her mother, she has been listening to her on the radio for years.
The show sometimes deliberately recalls the teen heyday of The CW’s predecessor, The WB: Smith was on “Dawson’s Creek,” and Appleby was on “Roswell.” Echoing “Gilmore Girls,” Baze’s parents are rich stiffs who blackmail him into attending a family dinner. In fact, the whole show could have been pitched as what “Gilmore Girls” would have been like if Lorelai had given Rory up for adoption.
Sometimes, as in the case of Baze’s parents, the writing can go for the tried and true. How many times have we seen a woman fleeing an inappropriate sexual partner’s bed the morning after while saying, “This never happened!”
Other times, the dialogue spells out what we’ve already figured out for ourselves. Pondering why Lux has come back in her life, Cate says, “Maybe it’s so she and I and all the people we love can grow up, once and for all, together.”
Although the writers do a decent job of keeping the main characters’ living situation in a state of flux for the first three episodes, we never quite believe that Lux is going to try to strike out on her own, especially since her boyfriend, Bug (Rafi Gavron), seems a little on the wild side for such a levelheaded girl.
But this series will be driven by character, not plot. Fortunately, the principal players are up to the challenge. Polaha rings true as a slacker who believes he peaked in high school; Appleby always seems to be suppressing mild panic; and Smith makes us feel guilty for rooting against him, even though we’re probably supposed to.
As Lux, Robertson comes across as a survivor, both tough and needy. Viewers who have space in their lives for a little sentimentality will want to adopt her right away.
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