A few quick thoughts on the latest "Life Unexpected" coming up just as soon as I fire up the DeLorean and grab the condoms... Each week, it seems, we meet, and/or Lux meets, a different part of her family. In the pilot, she found her birth parents. In episode two, we discovered her surrogate family of fellow foster kids. Tonight brings in Lux's grandparents (and aunt) in the form of familiar TV faces Robin Thomas and Susan Hogan (as Baze's parents), Cynthia Stevenson (Cate's mom) and Alexandra Breckenridge (Cate's sister). At some point, the show will need to put the brakes on this before we get to "Episode 21: Lux is horrified when her second cousin Frank is murdered," but for now the expansion of the show's world - and the many potential character combinations, ala "Modern Family," that we now have - has felt natural and interesting.
And in showing us how Baze's dad disapproves of him, it continues the character's evolution into something more human and likable than just the generic Peter Pan character he could have been. I never thought much of Kris Polaha (good or bad) in his previous series gigs, but more than anything else, he's what has me wanting to keep watching "Life Unexpected" past this episode (the last I saw in advance via a screener).
Again, we get the push-pull of the Lux/Baze/Cate relationship, with everyone backing away and then coming back together for a more formal meeting between Baze, Cate and Lux's friends. I'd like to see the show evolve past that soon, but the performances, and moments like Lux halfway scamming her way into the popular clique(*), still have me enjoying it.
(*) And that worked entirely because two of the girls didn't buy it at all. Had Lux successfully talked herself in with the whole crowd at once, it would have been too much, and too easy.
What did everybody else think?
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