harley-cross

As a sequel, they almost had it, if the producers would have finessed the talent that they had. Jimmy Baio added nothing good to the group. With the existing players. the film could have made it, but bringing in the "weird" talent - the producers killed the movie. A gamble that lost. Sigh.

I believe that Joe Weisberg's personal life influenced the lack of Henry's ( Keidrich Sellati's) role in the series. The plots and character development are certainly powerful enough to include him; maybe in the final season he will have a role. In the second season the use of "the other son" was quite disappointing; I attribute that to poor writing and that may well have killed off any hope for poor Mr. Sellati. It's a hard nut to crack. Paige certainly is a powerful element to the photoplay, but I still believe the premise is powerfull enough to carry them both. Adding the (marginal) Vietnamese character didn't help; but that may be because I live in an area with a tremendous TRUE Vietnamese/Laos refugee population so the Joe Weisberg character seems quite false in comparison. Henry could have, by comparison, been fleshed out more fully; but I do understand the need for the series to bring to light the other players in the Communist movement, so I do understand and support those plot-lines as well. Sounds wishy-washy, but that's politics. I just think that a Dad would have a closer bond to his son, especially knowing Philip's past. Every Russian I have known has has a very close bond to his son.

My family and I started watching this show via streaming video only because my wife and I were impressed by Steve Martin's film of the same name. That film was surprising to us due to its complexity, seriousness and character depth which was unexpected considering the advertising and actors involved, we did not think it would be as excellent as it was. So - there's my plug for the film.

The television show also is of an equal quality. I found the characters believable and mostly legitimate, though I must say in the later episodes Lauren Graham's character was so irritating (my wife said, "can she ever just stop talking??") we could not stand to listen to her and fast-forwarded past her dialog. Max Burkholder is our all-time favorite and who doesn't love Dax Shephard? What kind of name is Dax, anyway? My son always asks this as he liked him in "Zathura". Sarah Ramos is a talented studio staple, she was spectacular in "American Dreams". The content of the series although written as California-oriented most of the family issues could be found anywhere; however, the wide, wide liberal premise is a bit Ozzie and Harriet for mainstream non-inner-city America such as Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Utah. But that's what television is - an escape from reality. All in all a good show, but we would have enjoyed it more if the writers had Ms. Graham and Whitman shut the heck up.