Stream It Or Skip It: ‘This Is Us’

Sincere storytelling is hard to come by these days, especially on television. Emotional moments often feel forced, and genuine tears are a rarity. NBC has found a cure to the absence of honest tearjerkers with This Is Us, a soapy melodrama from Dan Fogelman following multiple, seemingly unrelated storylines. We’re here to fill you in on the syrupy sweetness of the show’s pilot. 

A Guide to Our Rating System

Opening Shot: The opening of a pilot can set a mood for the entire show (think Six Feet Under); thus, we examine the first shot of each pilot.
The Gist: The “who, what, where, when, why?” of the pilot.
Our Take: What did we think? Are we desperate for more or desperate to get that hour back?
Sex and Skin: That’s all you care about anyway, right? We let you know how quickly the show gets down and dirty.
Parting Shot: Where does the pilot leave us? Hanging off a cliff, or running for the hills?
Sleeper Star: Basically, someone in the cast who is not the top-billed star who shows great promise.
Most Pilot-y Line: Pilots have a lot of work to do: world building, character establishing, and stakes raising. Sometimes that results in some pretty clunky dialogue.
Our Call: We’ll let you know if you should, ahem, Stream It or Skip It.

THIS IS US

Opening Shot: Over black, text reads: “This is a fact: According to Wikipedia, the average human being shares his or her birthday with over 18 million other human beings. There is no evidence that sharing the same birthday creates any type of behavioral link between those people. If there is… Wikipedia hasn’t discovered it for us yet.”

The Gist: Multiple, seemingly unconnected individuals celebrate their 36th birthday on the same day as a series of life-altering events unfold. They are: Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) and Rebecca (Mandy Moore) a married couple expecting triplets, Kate (Chrissy Metz), who is miserable with her weight and attending a fat “support group” and her brother Kevin (Justin Hartley), an actor stuck doing a terrible sitcom who yearns for something more, and ever-so-successful family man Randall (Sterling K. Brown), who has been searching for his biological father.

Our Take: The moments in each narrative demonstrate the show’s ability to paint unique, intimate portraits of each character. Whether the moment is big (Rebecca going into labor after doing a birthday dance for Jack, Kevin having a meltdown on the set of his sitcom in front of a live audience), or small (Randall watching his daughters play soccer, Kate staring resentfully at the cake in her refrigerator), we get a glimpse of what their days are like and the emotions they are experiencing, and it allows for a truthful connection.

While the previews may have made the effectiveness of this drama questionable, the pilot erases any doubts, especially once the twist is revealed at the end. Many of the moments toe the line between drama and melodrama, but they remain sincere and heartfelt all the same. While the twist ending may prompt some question of sustainability, the artful manner in which it was woven into the pilot gives us hope for the installments ahead.

Sex and Skin: Aside from an attempt at a sexy dance from a very pregnant, fully clothed (lingerie over the clothes) Rebecca for Jack’s birthday, there isn’t any sex and skin in this pilot.

Parting Shot: A blissfully happy Jack and Rebecca look over the cribs of their new babies as a twist that effects the entire premise of the show as a whole is revealed.

Sleeper Star: Chris Sullivan plays Toby, the “funny fat guy from fat class”, with a likable sincerity and openness that makes each scene he’s in a little more interesting than the last. His chemistry with Metz allows for some of the pilot’s funnier moments, and he shines particularly during a scene at dinner with Metz during which he fights to see a dessert menu and evidently caves and asks for the check instead.

Most Pilot-y Line: “We’re 36. We’re officially late 30s.” Kate monologues about how she doesn’t know how she ended up where she is today, and it is slightly clunky as she dissolves into tears, but the sincerity conquers the flaws in the dialogue.

Our Call: Stream it. Fogelman has a real knack for character development, even if the storytelling is sugary-sweet at times. The twist that the pilot leaves us with definitely makes us want more, and it will be interesting to see how it all pans out. Genuine performances from a strong cast (we’ve missed you, Sterling K. Brown!) round out this shameless, savvy tearjerker.

[Watch the pilot for This Is Us on NBC and Hulu.]

Jade Budowski is an indecisive sometimes-writer with a knack for ruining punchlines and harboring dad-aged celebrity crushes. Follow her on Twitter: @jadebudowski.