Hindsight

Ramsey is just right for the role and Goldberg is equally good. Several other characters have promise. Even with all that second-hand smoke, Hindsight should show us a good time.

A clever, affecting and sly new show about bad choices begetting worse ones, begins somewhere near the intersection of romance and horror.

The flimsy story isn't the draw: It's the nostalgia for mock-turtleneck belly tees and the greatness of lines like "I want to do things differently... But first? I want to smoke in a bar." [9 Jan 2015, p.74]

Making it all about one woman’s journey keeps the field of vision rather narrow, and the pilot (directed by Michael Trim) doesn’t provide quite enough depth to fully appreciate the gravity of what changing Becca’s past might mean. Other than the styles of the era, scant effort has been made to reflect the passage of two decades on the characters, which is a quibble, perhaps, but a trifle disorienting at first.

There's still plenty of room for Hindsight to grow, and plenty of reasons to stick around for it to happen. Crucially, the show is ultimately more than the sum of its scrunchies, beepers and AOL accounts.

The VH1 series is slight, but it has a certain charm and the potential to grow into a harmless, soapy amusement.