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"REUNION"'S COMPELLING MURDER MYSTERY
TRUMPS SKETCHY WRITING
November 25, 2005
I write this on Tuesday, but by the time you read it on Friday, "Reunion" might be already canceled. Ratings for the Fox murder mystery have been abysmal, and most TV pundits have been waiting for the axe to fail.
Honestly, I've been kind of hoping for it.
This show is badly written and the acting is even worse. And yet I can't stop watching the dang-blasted thing because, once you look past all the ridiculous melodrama, "Reunion" is a brilliant TV concept that draws you in week after week despite its many faults. Every week I watch and cringe at the bad dialogue, the latest story contrivance, and yet I can't turn away. It seems only cancellation can set me free.
Airing on Thursdays at 9 p.m. (opposite the "CSI" juggernaut, which could explain the dismal ratings), the series is a whodunit told in reverse time. In the present, one of six lifelong friends has been murdered on the day of their 20th high school reunion. As a detective pieces together the puzzle by investigating the five surviving friends, the show flashes back to show the events that shaped the sextet's lives since high school, with each episode focusing on a brand new year.
And, oh, what sordid lives they have been so far. The super-tight clique graduated high school in 1986 (featured in episode one). In subsequent episodes already aired, we've learned of the tragedies that have befallen the six from then up till 1991. At the center is Samantha (Alexa Davalos), who, as a teen, was in love with both Will (Will Estes) and Craig (Sean Faris). Samantha had Will's baby, which she gave up for adoption, but married Craig. Meanwhile, their buddies Aaron (Dave Annable) and Carla (Chyler Leigh) share a deep emotional connection, but aren't together because he's busy inventing the Internet while she keeps an eye on Samantha's baby girl by working as a nanny for the child's adopted parents. The final chum is aspiring movie star Jenna (Amanda Righetti), who once slept with Aaron but now dates big-name actors.
Having said all that, I still haven't mentioned the prison term, business fraud, vehicular manslaughter, kidnapping, and domestic abuse that have also figured into the tale. The sheer amount of drama in these people's lives is maybe a half-step removed from a year's worth of "Days of Our Lives" plot developments.
At first, the show teased about which character ended up a corpse, but it was revealed in the 1990 episode that Samantha is the present-day victim. The remaining five are each suspects, with heavy hints that all five may be involved in some way, and now the show works its way toward the murder from both directions. The detective (who, of course, also shares a history with the sextet) follows the clues in the present, while the viewer is taken through 20 years worth of past events that led to Samantha's death.
It's an ambitious undertaking, one that it seems the people involved with "Reunion" are ill-equipped to handle. Of the actors, the only one who acquits himself admirably is Estes, who seems believable as both a confused but noble teenager and the haunted priest he will one day become. The other five are clearly out of their league, and they're not helped by the sketchy hair and makeup jobs used to age the characters two decades.
Nor does the ham-fisted dialogue improve matters. Characters in this show never, and I mean NEVER, speak what's on their mind or even clearly verbalize the information they're trying to share. Last week, Will, who joined the Army, brought a letter back from home from a fellow solider who died in the Gulf War, but was given the runaround by the soldier's sister, for whom the letter was intended. For the life of me, I can't figure out why Will didn't just immediately grab the girl and say, "Hey! This is a letter from your brother, okay? You might want to read it." But, alas, they had to go through the usual soap-opera theatrics first.
If it's not canceled - and the fact that Fox has stuck by it this far hints that maybe the network wants to see the show through to the end the season, ratings be damned - "Reunion" will return next week after a Thanksgiving break. And, sadly, I'll be watching because even with the dreadful execution, I absolutely must know how Craig ends up in a wheelchair…and what happened to Samantha's baby girl…and what drove Will to the priesthood. Despite having my TV sensibilities offended by "Reunion" on a weekly basis, I've just can't help but to see how this mystery unfolds.
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