Hey, all. "Moriarty" here. Last week, a series of circumstances kept me from attending this staged reading of MI CASA, a project that Robogeek described for all of you in this article. I wanted to attend, and it killed me to have to ask HERCULES THE STRONG to attend in my stead. Turns out, that may have been the right thing to do, since his report on the reading kicks some serious ass... in an editorial sense, of course. Enjoy this one, folks, and let's get a look at this pilot soon, eh?
Robogeek and the creators of a potential series-to-be asked that I drag myself away from my beloved MTV Movie Awards Thursday night to attend an HBO Workshop “reading” of a pilot script titled “Mi Casa.” (A “reading” in this context means a gathering of talented, reasonably well-known actors who sit upon a stage with scripts in their laps, emoting the dialog of a teleplay without benefit of set, props or costumes.) In retrospect, I’m very glad I decided to tape Sarah Jessica Parker’s “Sex in the Matrix” parody.
“Mi Casa’s” pilot script is - as Robogeek contends – “really good.”
Here’s why.
1) MOST IMPORTANTLY, IT’S FUNNY. This is the rarest commodity in film or television and (as many Coax readers are too aware) I am a whore for good comedy. A lot of the funny in this hourlong pilot is generated by two wary teen girls, Carson and Carmen – but their humor carries a realistic thoughtfulness and resonance; though the kids could be termed precocious, there’s no nod to the insult-laden backtalk so pervasive among “family” sitcoms. Carson, the show’s non-Latina central character (played at the reading by fetching “Freak & Geeks” linchpin Linda Cardellini), also enjoys an amusingly combative relationship with her bigshot electronic-journalist mom. Cardellini, said to be attached to this project should it ever see the light of a cathode-ray tube, is a colossal asset: her natural charisma sometimes makes it easy to overlook how adept she is at nailing a laugh-line.
2) IT’S USER-FRIENDLY. Robo placed a lot of emphasis on the show’s Latino elements – and these elements would certainly prove invaluable in helping the show stand out in our fast-expanding television universe - but the central character, Carson, is non-Latina, and the two families around which the show revolves are thoroughly American. You won’t mistake Lupe’s family for Jews, Italians, Latvians or Pakistanis, but what they share with most U.S. clans certainly outshines any cultural aspects peculiar to Latinos. If anything, the show is far more gendercentric in that the three central characters are Carson, her mom, and Carson’s new surrogate mom Lupe – but the hopes, concerns, guilts and motivations of these women are not lost on those of us who (to paraphrase Xander Harris) watch the action movie, eat of the beef, and enjoy to look at the bosoms.
3) IT’S MOVING. Though too well-to-do to be properly classified as a latchkey kid, brainy Carson IS a bit of a lost girl, an only child with a famously busy career mom and no father to claim as her own. To see her embrace a bond with her mother’s best friend in the final minutes, and at long last move toward a place in a real family, was more than a little emotionally gratifying. This show reminds me a great deal of one of my very favorite novels, Ken Kesey’s “Sometimes a Great Notion,” which also depicts a troubled young adult who travels a good distance to revisit a family he only knew as very young child. The longing for home and family is nothing if not universal.
Does it feel like a hit? It does! Based on the pilot, I’d be willing to stick with these characters for at least a FEW episodes (which, frankly, was more than I was willing to do following the pilots of “Providence” and “Judging Amy”). If “Mi Casa’s” creators can approximate the pilot’s wit and/or pathos from week to week (and carry into a series the reading’s terrific cast) we could be looking at another “Once and Again.”
And God knows, the networks can always use another well-written hourlong drama. Would YOU mind seeing an hour less of “Dateline,” “Primetime Live” or “48 Hours” each week?
I warn you not to defy me!
