Techtite's TV Reviews!

"This show's best piece of ingenuity are its prologues and epilogues each episode, set in "present time," showing how each alteration of history affects Travis' future."

---from the review

------------------

Sidebar ::

-------------

What has gotten into TV Guide lately? Once upon a time, TV Guide was the penultimate place for TV commentary. Then something went wrong. Have you seen their "Top 50" of this-or-that lists lately? GARBAGE! Total garbage, with no thought aside from someone who watched Nick at Nite for a week, then made a list based on that and a few of their favorite modern TV shows. Guys; TV has been on for half a century! Don't you think your top 50 lists should be a bit more thorough than just what's on cable "now"?

That said, it's with no surprise that 1) they don't like "That Was Then," or so they said in their TV season preview, and 2) they prefer "Do Over," the WB network's sitcom with a similar premise. To each their own. For me, I'm still waiting for TV Guide to get back some of its insight from long ago. It used to be run by people who KNEW television. What happened?

-----------------

Feel free to contribute. As always, review submissions are accepted!

-----------------

That Was Then

A Review by Techtite

(review posted September 28th, 2002, with mild rewrites upon its unforeseen demise, just a week later!)

By the time you read this, That Was Then is gone. Adios. Aloha. Sayonara. Finito. Let's just say my foreign word terminology to express my feelings of this decision, are a lot more...colorful. However, what do you expect? A Disney ABC network that prefers sitcoms over dramas strikes again. A drama that was asked to survive as a follow-up to America's Funniest Home Videos gets the axe. No, that's not surprising at all. However, YES, it was fun while it lasted...

Here's the story, as cool as it was. James Bulliars starred as Travis Glass, who upon his 30th birthday party, is still a door salesman living at home. He gets talking with his old high school buddy, Donnie Pinkus (Tyler Labine), who believes that life "begins" at 30, though Travis disagrees. That auditorium speech he made at 16, for example, was so embarrassing, he can barely speak in front of a crowd ever since. Losing the confidence to put anything into words, he never told his one true love since the first grade, Claudia (Kiele Sanchez), how he truly felt about her. They remained "just friends," only to have her get seduced by Travis' lothario older brother Gregg (Brad Raider). 14 years later, Gregg and Claudia have an 11 year old boy, though the relationship is clearly strained, with Uncle Travis going to all his nephew's school functions instead of his own father. It would appear Claudia married the wrong guy.

Well, call it blowing out all the candles on his cake, or a freak lightning bolt that hits his stereo while playing "Do Over," though Travis wakes up in 1988, as a 16 year old again. He's ready to make some changes, but here's where the fun part of a well-written time travel series begins; for every one thing changed, something else is changed that you liked as-is. Yes, he made that pivotal auditorium speech into a show-stopper (with a standing ovation begun by by Donnie and Claudia; a cute touch), though doing so led to further ripples in time. He got invited to a party he normally didn't attend, kept Claudia at the party when she formerly left early, only to have her see...Gregg with another girl! This causes her to not only never speak to Gregg again, though Travis as well. As for Travis' favorite nephew; he was never born! Can Travis put right what has gone from bad to worse? Even if he can, what way should he change it?

This alludes to the show's best piece of ingenuity: prologues and epilogues set in "present time," showing how each alteration of history has affected Travis' future. Whenever Travis hears "Do Over" by The Kinks, he jumps back and forth in time. Since the future isn't set yet, "2002" is always the day before his 30th birthday, though for some reason, he always returns to the past where he left off. This gives a nice element of change-yet-permanence to the series. On the one hand, he can change the past as he gradually relives it; on the other hand, whatever changes he makes, to any given day/week, are set in stone. If he makes mistakes, he must undo them as time goes on.

This also leads to some poignancy. He cannot be everywhere at once, so no sooner does he save a boy from getting killed by train, then elsewhere Gregg makes his move and Claudia is no longer a virgin. Actually, I liked this element of the premiere episode, because the fact Travis is still in love with her shows how much he cares for her; he isn't just out to be the first to "get" her, or some other sort of Cro-Magnon hogwash. On the other hand, what about Ethan, Travis' nephew, who will never be born if Claudia and Gregg never reunite? Travis must do the right thing, presuming it doesn't get his future self in jail (or worse) in the process. It's all played excellently, for both drama and laughs.

The ensemble cast is well chosen. 24-year-old Bulliars, Sanchez , and Labine have youthful faces which comically pull off both their 90210-style "16-year-old" past, and their young-adult future. Kiele Sanchez (shown at left) particularly enhances the character of Claudia; a girl-next-door role that would be far less believable if thrown to a not-so-next-door actress like Heather Locklear. Of course, nothing but good things can be said for veteran actors like Bess Armstrong and Jeffrey Tambor as the parents, though the truly hilarious performance so far is Labine's, as Donnie Pinkus. Not unlike Danny DeVito's Louie Depalma on Taxi, or maybe a teenage Jack Black, he's the kid so outspoken it's a surprise that Travis is his only friend. Put this party animal in college, and he'd score 100 friends in his Freshman year alone.

Now, for the inevitable "flaws" paragraph. For one, someone's programming chief must've done lunch with another programming exec within earshot, because WB network's Do Over is remarkably similar. However, that is a half-hour sitcom played for laughs, not sentiment. People who'd rather remember the 1980's as mere sitcom fodder will steer clear of That Was Then, and that's a shame. However, I must admit; this series does need to end the occasional episode on a happier note, and by the end of season one, that should include Claudia and Travis happily married. If he's just going to go episode to episode not getting the girl, this series will fail for sure.

Thanks to shows like Firefly, John Doe and That Was Then, good Friday shows are here again. The days of settling for what Bart Simpson once called "ABC's Friday night craporama" are gone. Any fan of "lost loves" spanning the passage of time, should give this series a look.

Opinions? Speak your mind in Techtite's Letters Page!

Got a review you'd like to share? Techtite will post 2 of the best "guest" reviews received for any product, online, for all the world to see!