Foster The People

For the past several months, I thought Teri Polo, my favorite actress of my own generation, had disappeared into oblivion.   It turns out she's been starring in a dramatic series on basic cable TV - not on Lifetime - all the time.

The season finale aired tonight.  And I didn't know the show even existed until I read an article a4bout it in the Star-Ledger . . . this past Saturday! It sure took them long enough to feature it! And the review was not even written by the Star-Ledger's own TV critic but by someone at the online magazine Slate - a syndicated reprint. 

Again - why am I always the last to know about these things?

Anyway . . . "The Fosters" is a series on ABC-TV's ABC Family sister cable channel.  Teri Polo and Sherri Saum play - hold on to your hats, ladies and gents - an interracial lesbian couple with a multi-ethnic group of sons and daughters, biological and adopted.  The series deals with two moms - Teri Polo's character, Stef, is a policewoman - trying to raise their children and proving rock-solid support for them when things go wrong.  It's a show about family values in which the family happens to lack a father and has a very liberal mindset.  The moms, for example, don't mind their kids being sexually active - so are they - but they do insist that they use protection.

"The Fosters," I can definitely say that the show has a lot of heart and is emotional without being sappy.  "It's actually a lot like "Parenthood," which has become the gold standard for TV family dramas.  Of course, I came to it late, and I hope to see the earlier episodes online or on On Demand before the series returns . . . in January.  But it looks like Teri Polo finally - at last! - has a hit show.  And I now can definitely say, now that I've seen her play a lesbian policewoman, that she is one the best actresses of my own generation, and certainly my generation's best television actress.  (Sorry, Julie Bowen.)  

These comments obviously don't do "The Fosters" enough justice, so I'll have more to say once I've actually seen the earlier episodes.