- Network: ABC Family , Freeform
- Series Premiere Date: Jun 8, 2015
Critic Reviews
- Critic score
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- By date
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It's not just a gripping family story--it's an important one for all families to watch. [12 Jun 2015, p.70]
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Becoming Us, which is successful both as education and entertainment, vividly demonstrates that although some of Ben’s issues are unique, many are typical.
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It can often be trite and repetitive. But triteness and repetition characterizes a lot of everyday life, and the debut does an excellent job of giving us a portrait of Ben as a Midwestern teenager whose natural adolescent self-consiousness has been increased to near-paralysis as he comes to terms with his father’s new life.
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That Ben's girlfriend, Danielle, also has a transgender father ("It's just a small world, people") seems a touch made-for-TV, but the kids truly are OK, and their dealings with all four of their parents feel more real than surreal.
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Fortunately, the main players are compelling enough to overlook the inevitable strains that come from shoehorning any real life into a television series.
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Becoming Us suffers from poorly cut segments that might give you flashbacks to the ’90s seasons of MTV’s “Real World.”
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Credit Becoming Us for not skimping and showing the impact of changing genders on the children of trans parents in seemingly stark realness, but it's uncomfortable to watch a child endure such life changes publicly.
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The series resides at its own kind of crossroads: a serious project that aspires to foster greater understanding of and sensitivity toward the transgender community as well as those close to them, but which--by indulging in some of the bad habits endemic to this form of unscripted fare--itself remains a work in progress.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 2 out of 6
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Mixed: 1 out of 6
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Negative: 3 out of 6
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Jul 8, 2015
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Jul 11, 2015
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Jul 13, 2015