Jack & Bobby

Jack and Bobby is by the far the best new show of the year,and one of the best shows on television.It is an intelligent and enjoyable drama with great actors.What more do you want?Oh wait,from what I've been reading from some people here is that it is boring and predictable.You know what I see?I see an intelligent drama that is just too intelligent for the vast majority of people.They would rather watch the crap that is reality television or gritty crime shows such as CSI which is the most predictable show on television.I'm not saying CSI is bad,I watch it and its okay,but it is just a crime/forensic drama that doesn't involve much thinking at all,I have always guessed the killers right off,and have always been right.

As for reality TV,it is ruining great dramas such as Jack and Bobby,Angel 3rd Watch which is better than ER but doesn't get near as many viewers.Jack and Bobby is beyond reality TV,it involves people to think and to get sucked in,reality TV is for the people who find it hard to think.Great acting from all the cast,most notably Christine Lahti and the young Logan Lerman and great writing from Greg Berlanti(Everwood),Thomas Schlamme(The West Wing),Vanessa Taylor(Everwood and Alias) and directors such as David Nutter (Without a Trace,Roswell,The X-Files), provide a top quality show that is just too intelligent for many people.

I viewed the WB's "Jack & Bobby" on a preview DVD of the first episode which is airing this Sunday. Got it from an insert in "Entertainment Weekly". I had seen the TV trailer on the WB, and thought the series conceit was a modern retelling of Jack and Bobby Kennedy. "One brother will become President of the United States." On the surface it is, and this series has the possibility of being breakthrough television. "Jack & Bobby" centers around the conversation of the origins of greatness in all people.

The first episode is expertly crafted, effective in it's retrospective narrative, i.e. from the future looking back. I don't know who wrote the episode, but he or she is visionary, having a noble cause.

The cast is powerful. Christine Lahti plays Grace McCallister, free-spirited college professor and single mom to her sons, Jack and Bobby. Matt Long plays Jack, the older brother. Jack is a high school sophomore, track star, smart cool loner, and popular with the girls. Logan Lerman plays Bobby. Bobby is the sensitive geeky asthmatic brother, who really doesn't much care about what other people think. He also has a strength of character that even he is yet unaware.

The first episode is a battle of wills between Grace and Jack over Bobby's future, and the possibility of the man he will become. Long and Lerman have a special chemistry which is the power of "Jack & Bobby". Jack and Bobby have an unconditional and unspoken love for each other, and see the other as great. In the narrative the future First Lady recalls that Jack and Bobby are like "two sides of the same coin". Rather each fills in the other's "missing". Jack inspires the strength and character in Bobby, that he himself has not yet distinguished. Bobby brings out the heart and compassion in Jack which he often chooses to dismiss or disguise. Ultimately, "Jack & Bobby" is a story about greatness, and those who inspire greatness. It is not a coincidence that "Jack & Bobby" focuses on the relationship between three strong, smart, and special people. "Jack & Bobby" has the possibility of greatness.

I had the pleasure of previewing this program on a promotional DVD. I have to say that it is an interesting and somewhat charming drama that peeks at the life of a future president of the United States – during his boyhood years! The family chemistry is excellent; Jack, as the brooding, somewhat self-assured big brother to Bobby, the geeky and asthmatic kid, coupled with their liberal-over-protective-college-professor-single-mother, wonderfully played by Christine Lahti. The emotions seem genuine (which means good acting!) and the story line (at least for the pilot) was engaging. The dialogues are smart and real. The "flash-forwards" are tastefully done, and although definitely related, doesn't distract us too much to the "present day" storyline. I would love to see how this story develops.

I watched the first episode of Jack & Bobby which airs tonight on a promotional DVD that was provided by Entertainment Weekly.

The show is innovative, it is a futuristic documentary that centers around the president of the United States between 2040-2048 and looks back to when he was a normal (or not so normal) kid in our present day. The show is pretty darn innovative, mixing some great creativity of our future, with some even more great realization of our current lives. It shows how one child, not too different from you and me can grow up to be president.

The cast is nice, great chemistry between all of the actors, and no significantly weak links among any of the cast, although the boy who plays Bobby's conformist friend could have stood some more acting lessons. The story for the pilot was great, it involved Bobby's mother and brother fighting over how he should be raised, and it deals with drugs in a smart gritty way, not how 7'th Heaven would deal with it. But again, most of all is how the show seems to blend Futuristic Political Documentary With Present-Day gritty drama, so seamlessly.

8/10 - I have high hopes for this one!

Jack & Bobby is a strange drama in that it is original without seeming so. Two brothers grow up under the gaze of their brilliant, breakable, over-controlling, liberal-professor mom, and one of them becomes president. Weird concept, unlikely to work. But the real shock of J&B is: it does. The actors are one of the main reasons. Lahti is out of this world as a woman who desperately needs to be loved, but won't let it come to her. Lerman and Long, both fairly new, bring their characters to life wonderfully. Slattey is pleasantly wry as a father who has lost his wife and must now raise his children. Pare and Hodge add as well, and Cooper gives a surprisingly deep performance that proves strangely real.

The plots are good too. Yeah, it's bothering that week after week, we have to see poor Grace "learn" her lesson, and be humbled, but it's TV: no one would watch if an intelligent person wasn't forced to be put down contantly. Another good moment features her affair with a TA, which comes off, not as a fling, but rather as a ripping, surprising romance. The boys too add their own mix. Teenager Jack is pretty stereotypical, but he's still real, and while overly good Bobby is a bit too good, he still comes off as sweet and impressionable.

My only hope is that the WB learns to appreciate what a gem they have. This one's a keeper, guys.