The WB dropout 'High School Reunion,' following Texas schoolmates who gather after 20 years, graduates to TV Land starting tonight.
Taped in Hawaii by Next Entertainment in association with Warner Horizon Television. Executive producers, Mike Fleiss, Lisa Levenson; co-executive producers, Drew Hoegl, Jonathan Singer; supervising producer, Scott Cooper; senior producer, Walt Amiecinski; producer, David A. Price; story producers, Mary Celenza, Jacob Cohen-Holmes; lead director, David Sullivan;
VH1 scored bigtime with WB network castaway "The Surreal Life," whose success in the cable sphere spawned an entire "sur-reality" subgenre. It's hardly a surprise, then, that TV Land's pursuit of hipness would lead to another WB discard, "High School Reunion," mixing the opportunity to run "A-ha" tunes with all the angst of high school. As (over)produced, it's a rather uninspiring journey, boiling its denizens down to archetypes (the stud, the popular girl, the bully) before turning them loose on what amounts to "Temptation Island: Almost-40 Edition."
The 16 people assembled for their 20-year reunion in the camera-friendly environs of Maui come from JJ Pearce High in Richardson, Texas, dramatically promising that "some wounds heal, (and) others will open." Gee, promise?
Actually, the reunion concept remains a good one (TV Land widened the interval from one decade to two), allowing participants to bring along plenty of personal baggage, as well as the pain of past slights. The reunion mindset, after all, is familiar to everyone and has long been fodder for drama (Fox's short-lived "Reunion" was one recent example) -- including the fantasy of the picked-upon and ignored turning the tables on the cruel and popular.
Unfortunately, producer Mike Fleiss can't resist his proven "The Bachelor" formula by transparently manipulating situations -- whether it's belatedly bringing in a classmate that slept with his best friend's wife or manufacturing drama by confronting the bully with the geek that he abused. As presented, moreover, "Reunion" quickly gravitates toward dating-show territory, with the gang almost immediately piling into a hot tub.
Such criticisms notwithstanding, with its carefully massaged plotlines, "High School Reunion" is surely in the wheelhouse of the audience that TV Land wants to attract, as the older-skewing cable net seeks to spice up its lineup of classic reruns. Small wonder that the strategy is to imitate sister Viacom nets by offering inexpensive reality fare, though at least this effort doesn't rely on fading celebrities (as on TV Land's short-lived "Back to the Grind") to achieve that objective.
All of that's a rather roundabout way of saying that while "High School Reunion" isn't particularly well done, it'll probably be a staple of TV Land's lineup for the next 10 years. And if it's not quite in keeping with the pop-culture nostalgia that has become the channel's trademark, take a look at the other series slated to premiere on the network this year and then vote this one most likely to succeed.
Camera, Robert Erbeznik; editors, Greg Fitzsimmons, Folmer Wiesinger. RUNNING TIME: 60 MIN.
Contact Brian Lowry at
brian.lowry@variety.com
Date in print: Sat., Mar. 5, 2005