If there is something special that you have (and that attracts)’a place in heaven‘ (Dear Edward), the series that premieres this Friday on Apple TV + is in their names. About all that meeting we have between Jason Katims, head of ‘Friday Night Lights’ and the always great Connie Britton more than a decade after the end of the sports drama.
In addition, this reunion occurred in a series that promised to have them with the tear in automatic mode while throwing an optimistic aura. Something that the screenwriter also likes and there we have his ‘Parenthood’ or the most recent ‘Nuestra mirada (As We See It)’. On paper they already had me won. Too bad the execution didn’t convince me.
Based on the homonymous novel by Ann Napolitano, the series revolves around mourning. More specifically, that of the relatives of a group of victims of a plane crash from which only the miracle child survives, Edward (Colin O’Brien), who has lost his entire family.
grief overdose
It is not the first series of the little that we have in which Apple TV + wants to explore the duel. Last week we actually had ‘Therapy without a filter’, in which a psychologist’s grief response consisted of starting to remove one’s own filters when working… with fun (but not much) becoming. Here we go directly to the drama, to the melodrama.
Special care must be taken when both plot and theme are so intrinsically linked that the former makes the latter explicit: there is a danger of unnecessary redundancy, the feedback and to give continuous laps on, in this case, the pain, the mourning, the mourning and the loss. And this is where the script of Katims and company falls.
This causes not only a certain overdose of people grieving their respective losses and trying to continue with their lives, but also produces practically the opposite effect to what (I think) is intended. While there’s an inevitable emotionality, the journey with the characters throughout the series isn’t all that emotional. Mainly because it’s like listening to a bunch of scratched records at once.
Which is annoying because, on the other hand, the script is well written. Jason Katims knows perfectly how to design his characters, with a few brushstrokes he captivates us with victims and relatives in which the former get on the plane. That “before the tragedy” that we see throughout the first episode is really brilliant. But that glow fades in the following episodes.
Connie Britton leads a good cast
Despite this drift in the series, there are characters out there and here that are worth following. For example, it is somewhat refreshing that the plot of Britton’s DeeDee has a twist on the classic “your husband had secrets”even though it soon falls on common ground.
In fact, I would say that generally the dramatis personae of the series is interesting, and their interpreters are quite solvent when it comes to embodying them. They are characters with whom it is easy to empathize and who are the best asset to advance a plot that tends to stand still.
That trying to move forward and get ahead while there is something that continues to lead you to the worst feelings is the leit motif of ‘A place in heaven’. Something that is not only understandable but also practical in a series of this style, but that becomes embarrassing if it doesn’t get out of there. Although I consider that it generally does not have a bad script, the real problem with the series It comes from a saturation that is counterproductive. Sometimes, less is more.