Each week, I take a look back at a pilot from the 2010-11 season, first reviewed on my blog during that season. This week, I am looking at ABC's quickly cancelled My Generation!
The Details:
Premiered: September 23, 2010 on ABC
Starring: Michael Stahl-David, Jaime King, Kelli Garner, Keir O'Donnell, Mehcad Brooks, Daniella Alonso, Julian Morris, Sebastian Sozzi, Anne Son, Elizabeth Keener
Based on the Swedish Television Series "Blomstertid"
Developed by: Noah Hawley
What I Thought Then:
"I wanted to like this show. I really did. Even when I saw the bad reviews, I still had some hope because I thought it was a unique and interesting premise. But it's bad. It's really bad - maybe the worst of the new season."
"I can't think of a show that has been more contrived. These people don't even seem real."
"The writing is bad, the acting is bad, and it comes off awkward."
"The premise deserved better, it could have been a unique and different show unlike anything on TV. But it failed spectacularly."
What Others Said:
"The mockumentary conceit has been done to death... but it's effective in this drama, lending the characters' monologues both poignancy and also a light layer of satire." - Alessandra Stanley, The New York Times
"The execution is just awful - leaden and predictable and eyeroll-inducing at nearly every turn." - Alan Sepinwall, HitFix
"I'd rather watch it try and fail in its messy ambition than watch the competence of a dozen other new shows this fall." - James Poniewozik, Time Magazine
"It's trite and forced, a collection of cardboard types rather than characters." - Matthew Gilbert, Boston Globe
"While it's nice to see a show that isn't cops/docs/lawyers, it'd be nicer if the show was better." - Diane Werts, Newsday
What I Think Now:
Although my tastes have evolved since 2010 and I maybe didn't have a great sense of what really good TV Drama looked like back then, I could still identify a stinker. And boy is this a stinker. I feel very similar now as I did in 2010: interesting concept, terrible execution. It really had the potential to be something unique. But there was no way this documentary format was going to sustain the show for a multi-year run. It already had some serious inconsistencies in the pilot. Some of it was really leaning into the documentary angle but then they clearly wanted to play some character development scenes where the "documentary" almost felt like a hidden camera crew. It was like they wanted to be able to use this very gimmicky concept while also following quite a few standard drama tropes and the failure to lean into either type of show completely only hurt it. One of the many fatal flaws of this show was making each character a "type." That only aided to them being extremely one dimensional characters and there were so many of them. Not that they had much to work with, but the acting was just horrendous across the board, particularly when responding to the documentary crew. This was truly a mess in every way.
What Happened to the Show:
My Generation was one of the worst reviewed shows of the Fall 2010 crop (a 43 on Metacritic). The show was slotted on Thursdays at 8pm - a slot that was a nightmare for ABC from when Ugly Betty moved off the night in 2009 until Grey's Anatomy was moved to an earlier time in 2014. My Generation debuted to minuscule ratings and was one of two fall shows that was cancelled after just two episodes (the other being FOX's much better reviewed Lone Star). It's not too surprising that the cast didn't have some hidden gem in it who went on to huge things. Jaime King and Kelli Garner were the most well-known at the time and probably still are. What's most surprising is what happened to the showrunner after this show. It was adapted from a Swedish series but the American showrunner was none other than Noah Hawley. Hawley found much more success as a showrunner a few years later with the acclaimed Fargo, and has gone on to also create Legion and the recent Alien: Earth. My Generation was quickly forgotten, as it should be but ABC continued to have miss after miss in the Thursday 8pm slot.
Final Episode: September 30, 2010
Episode Count: 2 + 6 unaired
Where to Watch: The entire series including the unaired episodes is available for purchase on Prime Video and YouTube.
I'm excited to be contributing to The TV Ratings Guide! You can read my regular work in my weekly newsletter at Benjamonster's TV!
