Ordinary Show

After the TV drama series Parenthood" ended its run on NBC in 2015, "This Is Us," about to end its own run on NBC after six satisfying seasons - pretty much became the new "Parenthood."  When "Ordinary Joe," an NBC drama series showing a character named Joe Kimbreau and how his life can take three different paths based on the choice he makes after he graduates from college, debuted in the fall of 2021, some critics said it might become the next This Is Us."

The series premiere episode shows Joe at his college graduation and how his decision on how to celebrate leads to different outcomes . He can go with his family to dinner, which leads him to become a police officer like his father before him, go with his girlfriend Jenny, which leads to Joe marrying her and becoming a nurse, or go out with Amy, a fellow graduating classmate, which leads to Joe marrying her instead and becoming a successful singer-songwriter.   named Amy, which results in the two marrying and Joe becoming a successful musician. The series showed how each of these parallel lives worked out.

I used past tense in the last sentence of that paragraph for a reason; "Ordinary Joe" has been canceled.  I think I know why.  There was little drama in this drama series.   I really couldn't get into it.  It just seemed so clichéd.  One thing I noticed about this series is that, no matter which path he chose, Joe still ran into the same people he hadn't met before graduating from college.  The first episode shows Joe encountering Bobby Diaz, a New York City congressman, in all three timelines.  How is it that Joe was fated to meet the same guy no matter which life path he chose?  I'm sure that's not how fate works.  Fate brought me to meet top models from the 1980s like Nancy Donahue, but if I hadn't started a blog devoted to beautiful women like Nancy, which is how all of those women discovered me, or if I did something on the Internet other than blogging - gaming, for example - would I have still met any of those women?  I don't think so.

Anyway, enough viewers apparently agreed with me, and "Ordinary Joe" is no more.  And I'm not going to miss it, because it was nothing special. Mike Hale of the New York Times said it best: "Once you've figured out the plots . . ., you see that they're all generic dramedy setups . . .  and the triple plotting doesn't give the actors time to build real characters." 

A TV series has to have a special, unique quality to make it a success, like "This Is Us."  As for that show's impending finale, I'll cover that later.

I hope NBC at least renews "American Auto."