A Million Little Things

Give the show credit for not dragging its heels. ... Watching Jon's circle of survivors--men and women, friends and spouses--as they pick up the pieces should make for some memorable TV. [15-28 Oct 2018, p.9]

If you believe in the treacle-down theory when it comes to NBC’s rip-roaring success with “This Is Us,” then you’re ready for ABC’s drama about the emotional entanglements of a group of four Boston men (Ron Livingston, Romany Malco, David Giuntoli and James Roday) feeling all the feels that bros can feel when their best bro jumps from his skyscraper office balcony in the middle of a workday, without leaving a note. A Million Little Things comes on a tad too strong in its setup.

This is an at times affecting but too often overwrought drama series.

Call it feel-bad feel-good TV, or uncomfortable comfort food. And, more often than not, Things is a little comforting.

It all makes for a solid ensemble, and while I don’t know if I foresee a runaway hit like This Is Us brewing, A Million Little Things definitely has potential to be a solid drama.

Each twist can potentially upset the direction that the show seems to be heading in and instead create something profound. But for now, it feels like a well-orchestrated attempt to force melodrama into meaning while hooking viewers with an icky sense of ghoulish curiosity.

It’s so transparent about its intentions and also because it wants so badly for its audience to love these characters. Even though the cast is decent, the characters don’t immediately pop because the writing lacks nuance.

A very good cast and a steady vein of humor keep A Million Little Things watchable, while the fetishizing of death and a failure to generate consistent complementary emotions keep it from rising above a well-intentioned slog, a derivative Thirtysomething Reasons Why.

The soapy drama turns out to be a bit too much, and if that’s what the creators think is necessary to sustain the show, it might hint at structural flaws that a TV series can’t overcome.

If This Is Us and The Big Chill had a baby, it would be the show this wants to be, but isn't. [28 Sep 2018, p.49]

It's a good ensemble, but the whole exercise feels too conspicuously like a throwback to a certain kind of ABC drama that, frankly, has seen better days, and which has begun yielding diminishing returns.

A pilot that’s both intriguing, as we see the bits of deception underpinning an all-male clique, and frustrating, as it often strains credulity as well as certain boundaries of taste.

Projecting male sensitivity through drama scripts seems to be a difficult task for any writer who isn’t Shonda Rhimes, but this series is an example of how not to do it, in that it links men having feelings to crisis and misery. Relationship ennui and marital bed death are low-key obstacles here, but even worse is the way the premiere capitalizes on the disconnect between the four main characters and the wives and girlfriends in their lives.

There are a million other things you could be watching instead.

A weepy wannabe from the "This Is Us" playbook that doesn't build much of a case for caring about the characters, much less weeping over them.

Getting to the bottom of why Ron took his life should be an interesting pursuit, but not with these folks, who repeatedly speak in clichés--“Ron always said everything happens for a reason”--and often seem tone deaf as they joke flippantly about the suicide.