The story
centres on a group of siblings (I never did get round to counting exactly how
many), their free spirit mother and degenerate grandfather. The girls all seem
to be named after notable female pop culture figures from the last fifty years
(the ones I picked up were Germaine, Aretha and Yoko). The kids are being home schooled so have
relatively little chance to interact with wider society. This may explain their
charming eccentricities, or it could be genetic. Their mother is a
chain-smoking, idealist who wanted her children to grow up without the
corrupting influences of ‘The Man’ (so they are home schooled) and the
grandfather climbs through the window then takes the kids back to his house to
retrieve his weed stash. It’s the sort of chaos that can easily be played for
laughs and the sheer absurdity of the situations alone should raise a chortle.
Much of the
pilot focussed on the relationship between oldest sister Germaine (probably
based on Caitlin) and second oldest Aretha (probably based on Caroline).
Germaine is a lovelorn teenager unable to keep her internal monologue to
herself with wild Wuthering Heights hair and dreams of an impassioned life of
love affairs and swooning. Aretha is more practical, scathingly misanthropic
and really wants a tenner for a new history book. Aretha is probably the
character I most related to, but I’ve met my share of Germaines.
However the
other siblings and the mother felt a bit one dimensional. Sometimes comedies
can get away with using people as talking props if they’re funny enough, but, to be brutally
honest, this one wasn’t (sorry Caitlin). There were some genuinely funny
moments and good one liners, but other jokes just felt contrived. I expected it
to be side splitting, but it was only watchable.
The cast was
also too large. Some of the siblings appeared to be there just to fill up space
(including ones who had actual lines). I was never sure how many children
there were. I think the writers were probably trying to give an accurate
reflection of their childhood, but I couldn’t help feeling the script wouldn’t
have suffered from just being Germaine spouting romantic nonsense which was
then expertly punctured by Aretha for half an hour.
But I did
enjoy it and if it gets made into a series I will certainly be back to see how
the dysfunctional pseudo-Morans are getting along. There is a lot of room for
character development here. Germaine and Aretha are pretty well put together
and the have a wonderful sisterly relationship. You can tell they love each
other, but that will not stop them throwing lawn mowers at each other or locking
each other in spider infested garden sheds. I think most people with siblings
close in age to them can relate to that.
