![\"NBC-This-Is-Us-KeyArt-Responsive-5x4-KO-v2\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/524\/2016\/09\/NBC-This-Is-Us-KeyArt-Responsive-5x4-KO-v2.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cThis Is Us,\u201d airing Tuesdays on NBC, may be just what network TV needs right now.<\/p>\n
For years around Hollywood, at press events and parties, I\u2019ve been preaching the same gospel to ABC and NBC (not CBS, which has always got it):<\/p>\n
You\u2019re never going to sit at the cool kids\u2019 table again. Heck, HBO is lucky if IT doesn\u2019t get kicked off the cool kids\u2019 table. You\u2019re probably not going to win many, if any, Emmys or Golden Globes going forward. How about we try to make some money and survive? How about programming to the vast middle of America, where people are starving for shows that resemble their lives, represent their reality and their values? They settle for mediocre or just plain bad stuff, because they\u2019re desperate to find something they can sit down with their kids and watch. You can feed this audience better than just reality shows and the occasional sitcom.\u00a0You\u2019re leaving money on the table.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Somewhere along the way, NBC listened. In 2015, the network hit big with the TV-movie \u201cDolly Parton\u2019s Coat of Many Colors,\u201d and quickly turned around a 2016 sequel, \u201cChristmas of Many Colors.\u201d In between, it picked up \u201cThis Is Us.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n
If you haven\u2019t been watching, you can catch up on Hulu<\/a>\u00a0or at NBC.com<\/a>. If you haven\u2019t seen it at all, SPOILERS are coming, so look away now!<\/p>\n
\u201cThis Is Us\u201d stars Milo Ventimiglia and Mandy Moore as Jack and Rebecca Pearson, a white couple in 1980ish that is expecting triplets. On the day of the birth, one of the babies dies. But, coincidentally, a newborn African-American baby was left at a fire station, and he winds up in the same hospital nursery ward as the surviving fraternal twins, a boy and a girl. Urged on by their obstetrician (Gerald McRaney), Jack and Rebecca decide to adopt the abandoned infant.<\/p>\n
At the same time, in the present day, the show follows the triplets \u2014 twins Kate (Chrissy Metz) and Kevin (Justin Hartley), and adoptee Randall (Sterling K. Brown) \u2014 as 36-year-old adults struggling with challenges in their lives. Chrissy desperately wants to lose weight while juggling a new boyfriend (Chris Sullivan); Kevin quits a successful sitcom because he wants more respect as an actor; and Randall has just located his biological father (Ron Cephas Jones), who is dying of cancer.<\/p>\n
As episodes go on, \u201cThis Is Us\u201d switches back and forth between time periods in the past when \u201cthe Big Three\u201d are kids, and their thirtysomething present.<\/p>\n
While the show has some adult elements (Randall\u2019s father is apparently bisexual, as a male lover has appeared), and there is some brief partial nudity (mostly Ventimiglia\u2019s backside \u2014 this is still network TV), but the show is generally suitable for junior-high students and up. It deals with a range of family issues in a slightly sentimentalized, but mostly realistic, manner.<\/p>\n
It also shows supportive, loving marriages, both Jack and Rebecca\u2019s, and that of Randall and his wife (Susan Kelechi Watson). In particular, it shows both Jack and Randall as strong, involved, intelligent fathers, who love spending time with their families \u2014 a stark contrast to the bumbling, lazy dads too often seen on TV.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Pearsons are not overtly religious, but neither are they atheists. There was also a Christmas celebration, and a family funeral scene in which there was a Bible and prayers, so one can assume the family is\u00a0at least nominally Christian.<\/p>\n
But last week, the show hit a home run, especially for Catholic viewers.<\/p>\n
The episode that aired Jan. 17, called \u201cThe Big Day,\u201d\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0written by series creator Dan Fogelman and Laura Kenar, was a prequel, charting the 24 hours before the birth of the twins and Randall. It also contained one of the most charming Catholic storylines I\u2019ve seen this year.<\/p>\n
It introduced us again to Joe (Brian Oblak), the firefighter from the pilot. He sat in confession with his priest, admitting that he\u2019d lied to his wife about quitting smoking \u2026 and that his marriage was in trouble. He asked the priest for a miracle.<\/p>\n
Later, when the baby appeared at the fire station, Joe decided to take him home and tell his wife that it was a sign, that they should adopt him. The wife didn\u2019t go for that, instead urging him to take the newborn to the hospital.\u00a0At first he\u2019s disappointed, but over the course of the episode, we see Joe and his wife reconnect, rediscovering that made them fall in love in the first place. By the show\u2019s end, they are back together.<\/p>\n
There are lots more lovely storylines in this episode \u2014 and you\u2019d have to have a heart of stone if Gerald McRaney doesn\u2019t at least make you misty \u2014 but to see a Catholic turn to confession, ask for a miracle, not get the one he wanted but the one he needed, and put his marriage back together, was a beautiful thing.<\/p>\n
I saw the episode at a screening. Afterward at the party, I asked Fogelman what inspired him to put in this storyline. He said that he wasn\u2019t a religious person at all, but that the idea that Randall was destined for Jack and Rebecca had overtones of faith, so he brought in Joe\u2019s Catholicism.<\/p>\n
For a secular writer to have the generosity to add this, and to get it right, may not be the miracle Catholic viewers were hoping for, but it may be the one they needed.<\/p>\n
At a present press event for the show, it was announced that \u201cThis Is Us\u201d has been renewed for two more 18-episode seasons, bringing the total order so far to 36 (heh).<\/p>\n
Also, Justin Hartley said something that emphasizes what the show is about:<\/p>\n
To what Milo was saying about it being important, I\u2019ll tell you a really quick story. Without saying any names, I have a friend who\u2019s divorced. A lot of us have been divorced. He\u2019s got two kids, a daughter, a son. His daughter is 15; his son is 12. He said to me, \u201cWe look forward to this, the three of us.\u201d Obviously, they\u2019re doing different things. These are three lives that are completely different, but yet they gather around the TV every week. And he goes, \u201cIt\u2019s one of the only only things that we do together. We all enjoy it. We all look forward to it.\u201d They all sit together, and they watch it, and it\u2019s a thing that they do as a family. So, to your point it being important, that right there, that kind of stuff, floors me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Click here<\/a> to read\u00a0the cast\u2019s comments on the episode airing Tuesday, January 24, including this warning from Hartley:<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s heartbreaking,\u201d cautions Hartley. \u201cIt\u2019s gonna\u00a0sit with you for awhile. It\u2019s one of those things where when you turn it off, it\u2019s gonna\u00a0sit with you for days.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Image:\u00a0Courtesy\u00a0NBC<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n
Don\u2019t miss a thing: head over to my other home at\u00a0Family Theater Productions<\/a>; also like the\u00a0Patheos Catholic<\/a>\u00a0FB page to see what my colleagues have to say.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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