A tale of two series: NBC offers comedy, tearjerker
Here’s a theory: NBC is trying to drown us in our own tears.
The network is committed to airing shows that masterfully tug at Americans’ heartstrings. Before “This Is Us,” there was the football-centric “Friday Night Lights” and the family drama “Parenthood,” two series produced by Jason Katims that never ran short on misfortune or inspiring comeback stories. The showrunner’s latest, “Rise,” adheres to the same formula while highlighting a new community: theater kids.
Luckily for us, the tear-jerker has somewhat of a comedic counterpart in Mindy Kaling and Charlie Grandy’s midseason sitcom “Champions.” Whereas “Rise” follows high school theater director Lou Mazzuchelli (Josh Radnor) and his students as he acclimates to his new role, “Champions” centers on a gym owner named Vince (Anders Holm) whose life turns upside down after his son, Michael (J.J. Totah), moves in with him to attend a performing-arts school in New York.
However different in genre, both series rely on the passion and sincerity of the talented teenagers to captivate audiences.
This isn’t a new occurrence — school musicals have long been used as plot devices - but it’s a notable one considering they aren’t technically the main characters of either show. Despite episodic arcs designed to make us care most about Lou and Vince, the men are arguably the weakest links of “Rise” and Champions.” Theater kids steal the show.
Let’s start with Michael, since that’s what the spirited character would probably want. Upon leaving the 15-year-old in New York with the father he just met, single mother Priya (Kaling) tells her son: “You were the sweetest little boy - until you turned 4. Then you saw Bernadette Peters sing ‘Send in the Clowns’ on PBS and you have complained every day since that you need to live in New York City.” When Vince criticizes Priya’s parenting later in the episode, Michael defends her by yelling: “My mother is an angel! You robbed her of her youth and left her for dead, like Fantine in ‘Les Mis,’ so I had to be raised by the ghoul she had become!”
Vince didn’t actually leave his pregnant high school sweetheart for dead, of course, but instead moved to Arizona to pursue his college baseball dreams. When they didn’t pan out, he moved to New York and took over his late father’s gym in Brooklyn.
Michael is a lot to handle at times, but he’s the heart of “Champions.” Kaling is an executive producer on the series and will only recur as Priya, meaning her trademark pop-culture references and eccentric personality — seen previously with Mindy Lahiri of “The Mindy Project” and Kelly Kapoor of “The Office” — have been passed to her character’s son instead.
“Rise” is set in a bluecollar Pennsylvania town that no longer has its steel mill, and noted sitcom actor Radnor plays Lou, a painfully earnest English teacher who snags Stanton High’s theater-directing gig in the pilot. It’s all well and good for Lou, who claims that he wants to make the program into “something special,” except that he is kind of an awful person. His hard-working colleague Tracey Wolfe (Rosie Perez) had planned to put on “Grease,” and he instead announces that the musical will be “Spring Awakening.” He continues to undermine her authority throughout the show, which he justifies by telling his wife of his new role: “I need this. I need something.”
“Rise” is better off when it casts Lou aside in favor of the compelling Stanton High students. You might shed a few tears for Maashous Evers (Rarmian Newton), an essentially homeless foster kid who the Mazzuchelli family takes in. Or maybe you’ll feel for Gwen Strickland (Amy Forsyth), whose talent Lou overlooks and whose parents are on the brink of divorce. There’s another kid whose Christian parents disapprove of him playing a gay character in the school’s musical and a transgender student determined to use the boys’ changing room in an early episode.
It’s a Katims show, after all, so prepare your emotions accordingly.
The most impressive ensemble member is easily Auli’i Cravalho, whose voice viewers might recognize from “Moana.” She plays Lilette Suarez, a waitress’ daughter who wants more than what Stanton can offer her. After gentle prodding, she puts her soul into playing Wendla Bergmann, a lead character in “Spring Awakening,” opposite quarterback Robbie Thorne (Damon J. Gillespie), who plays Melchior Gabor. Lou gains a few points for noticing the chemistry between these two students, which emerges as one of the show’s greatest strengths.
“Champions” and “Rise” showcase the welcoming space that musical theater can provide for teenagers, something that student survivors of last month’s tragedy in Parkland, Florida, unexpectedly highlighted, too. As the New Yorker’s Michael Schulman pointed out, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School’s drama club is also preparing for a production of “Spring Awakening.”