Cult Corner: Watch the Leah Remini Scientology Series You’ve Never Seen

When we talk about streaming culture, we’re usually enthusing about what’s new, but one of the best things about streaming is how it’s made old and obscure cult hits available to a new generation. Presenting Cult Corner: your weekly look into hidden gems and long-lost curiosities that you can find on streaming.

By now Leah Remini‘s name is as closely connected to criticizing Scientology as it is to The King of Queens. The award-winning A&E docu-series Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath has helped revolutionize mainstream criticisms of the church. Whereas stories about shady happenings in the organization used to only happen in select in-the-know circles, it’s now commonplace to see Twitter conversations and Reddit threads about Scientology thanks in part to Alex Gibney’s Going Clear and the comedic actress. That’s what makes Leah Remini’s other reality show, It’s All Relative, so very jarring.

Created by TLC, It’s All Relative aired in 2014 and follows Remini and her family a year after their decision to leave the church. The reality show should watch as a fascinating look into the unique tolls that come with leaving the notoriously strict organization in the middle of a time when criticisms of Scientology were on the rise. After all, Lawrence Wright’s book Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief was released a year before Remini’s reality show, and Alex Gibney’s documentary adaptation of the book premiered on HBO the year after It’s All Relative‘s first season. However, time after time It’s All Relative abandons its shocking hook in favor of becoming just another quirky celebrity reality show from the mid-2000s. Considering it only premiered four years ago, it’s a stylistic approach that feels outdated even for its time.

This isn’t to say that It’s All Relative avoids Scientology. In fact, the show’s first episode starts with Remini and her family planning a party to celebrate her friends after leaving the church. Here’s how Remini describes the party:

“Well I don’t know if everybody knows, but we recently left Scientology and are being shunned by most of our family and friends. So this party is really like a celebration that we’re still together. We have a lot to be thankful for,” she says in the first episode. “Although we’re mourning the loss of longterm friendships we’re saying, ‘Wait, we’re together. We have friends who are supporting us, and let’s celebrate that.”

The moment is a fairly sad confession from a woman who has lost most of her social network because of a single organization. However, It’s All Relative chooses to accompany this moment with bouncy and quirky reality TV music, bright lighting, and awkward pauses. If Scientology and the Aftermath sought to expose the lies of this organization, It’s All Relative seems like it wants to turn leaving Scientology into a light-hearted sitcom.

Knowing the allegations we know now, it’s a tone that seems sinisterly out of sync with changing opinions of the organization. It’s also a tone that seems at odds with Remini’s opinions about Scientology as a whole. Two years after she left the church, Remini wrote Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology, and her A&E docu-series doesn’t hold back in its criticisms of the church. From sexual abuse and psychological torture allegations to questioning the disappearance of Shelly Miscavige, neither the A&E series nor Remini pull any punches. Conversely, the TLC series seems to prefer skirting around any direct conversations about Scientology despite Remini’s transparency.

There are a lot of reasons why It’s All Relative and Scientology and the Aftermath may have such conflicting tones. Whereas TLC prides itself on silly and heartfelt human interest shows, A&E strives to be a bit more somber. Also, Remini was in a very different place when she filmed It’s All Relative in 2014 than she was when Scientology and the Aftermath premiered two years later. A year after leaving the church she was raised in, there’s a chance Remini wanted to film a relaxed series about family, fake funerals, and teaching her mom the Electric Slide instead of well-researched takedown. However, knowing the Remini we know now, It’s All Relative‘s silly tone is surprising to say the least.

Stream Leah Remini: It's All Relative on Amazon Video