The Unremembered 80s

One week or one fictional year has now passed since the premiere episode of FOX's Reunion (even thoughh 1987 won't air until next Thursday). For whatever reason, I decided this was the show that I'd add to my paltry list of shows I watch. Yeah, not so much. In case you missed it, here a few helpful hints for avoiding Reunion:



1) Basil Exposition's stellar eulogy, which opens the show and leans more towards laying out the show's basic premise (These six people...Three HOT guys(!)...Three HOT girls(!) redefined friendship. You know nothing of the bonds that tie people together unless you knew these six. Fuck you for thinking that Chandler and Joey got along alright and would be there for each other if need be. FUCK YOU!) than, y'know, an actual eulogy. If Cliff's Notes were made for crap TV shows...who am I kidding...this show is a Cliff's Notes version of a real show.

2) Craig is rich. Will is poor. They are best friends. Craig is rich. His dad is such a wealthy layabout that he has all the time in the world to plot schemes to get his son out of any and all trouble that the little rascal gets into. Will's father is too busy clipping hedges outside the Waldbaums. Craig can't stand trial for vehicular manslaughter because a judge and jury will not take kindly to a rich kid's transgressions. Will can stand trial because judges and juries are soft when it comes to the poor's transgressions. Craig and Will are best friends. Craig and Will are best friends. Craig ("Baby Ben Affleck") and Will have nothing in common, seem to sort of dislike each other, keep a fair share of secrets from one another (like Will knocking up Craig's girlfriend and secretly loving her), but as they say about sixty times throughout the hour...THEY ARE BEST FRIENDS.

3) There's a scene early on when a detective confronts one of the characters in the present day. (The show tracks twenty years in the life of these six friends, culminating in one of them getting murdered...the clues to whodunit are laid out in the episodes leading us to the present.) The cop makes some reference to how he needs to talk to her in private because he can't ask these kinds of questions in public. This falls flat, of course, because he doesn't ask her anything even mildy spicy. No questions about a dirty sanchez she may or may not have received in 1991. No discussion of the use of pieces of flair as sex toys at the grand opening of the TGIF in Sysosset, NY. Nope. Just more bland exposition for the guy who apparently didn't listen closely enough to the eulogy.

4) The part of Aaron...the nebbish whose "Wham! is the next Beatles" lines really slay for people who think people were always making inane references back in the days they think they're nostalgic for but still maintain a superiority to. He's also what happens when Adam Brody ends up in The OC and you get the guy who was told they were going a different way after the second callback.

5) No craft. Everything and I mean everything is played on its head. A scene about friendship, for example, never shows them being friends, but just has them talking about how great it is being friends...over and over and over again. The concept is still interesting, but when everything else is this bland, no one cares who gets killed, because we already want them all dead anyway.