There is an audience for a show like “This is Us.” They’re the type who cry during Nicholas Sparks movies. Honestly, they’re probably buying premiere tickets in advance for every single Nicholas Sparks movie. For them, “This is Us” is an accomplishment — a hyper-sentimental, by-the-numbers television show.
For everybody else, “This is Us” is an irritating slog. The show’s premise revolves around a group of individuals who have a shared birthday and carry a deeper connection. The specifics of this connection are made clear by the end of the pilot and, to be fair, it’s a genuine and creative surprise, albeit not super interesting.
The stories of these individuals are also not super interesting: Jack and Rebecca (Milo Ventimiglia and Mandy Moore) have just moved to their new home in Pittsburgh and are expecting triplets, Kevin (Justin Hartley) is a disillusioned actor, Kate (Chrissy Metz) is a woman trying out a weight loss help group and Randall (Sterling K. Brown) is grappling with meeting his biological father for the first time. The actors do their best with the material, but it’s hard to take Kevin’s struggles seriously when he’s shirtless on the set of “The Manny,” and the dialogue is “You took the sourest lemon that life has to offer and turned it into something resembling lemonade.”
Underscoring the show is a cloying soundtrack meant to steer any confused audience member into an intended emotion — almost every scene of the premiere contains gentle acoustics. It’s condescending, and it negates any lasting power of the admittedly strong cast.
The anchoring couple chemistry of Jack and Rebecca is pleasant and worn-in thanks to Ventimiglia and Moore. In one of the best scenes of the premiere, Jack playfully requests a very-pregnant Rebecca to give him a birthday dance while he is donned in nothing but a Terrible Towel. Likewise, twins Kevin and Kate, who are otherwise very different in their individual trajectories, find common and comfortable ground in their conversations. The cast is the show’s greatest benefit and indicator of its potential long-term success.
In the end, though, the merit of “This is Us” can best be graded by how it elicits tears. It’s a given that the Nicholas Sparks audience will find something to cry about at the end of every week. Everyone else will cry at just how long an hour of this trite show is.
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