Television Review: "Life UneXpected" Episode One

By our guest blogger, Travis Harvey

The show that has been called "Juno" meets "Gilmore Girls" did everything the critics promised it would do. The show made me laugh, want to cry at some points, and it did something in the first episode that most shows make you wait until that mid-season cliffhanger--"Life UneXpected" made me feel something for the characters.

The pilot episode introduces viewers to Lux, a 15-year-old (16 in two days, she notes multiple times.) who has made her way around the foster care system and finally has had enough. Lux seeks out her biological parents so that she may become an emancipated teen. In the process of finding her parents, she had no idea of the changes that would be coming her way. Lux learns from her new found father, Nate “Baze” Bazile, that Cate Cassidy, a radio DJ who Lux loves, is her mother. When Cate becomes engaged to her radio co-star boyfriend, she thinks that will be the biggest change in her life.

The pilot did its job well with helping viewers to connect with the show's main character, Lux--she reveals to her biological mother that when she was born, she had a defect in her heart that left her having surgeries until she was 3, hence her bouncing around foster homes “because people wanted a baby, not hospital bills.”

Some drama that we definitely will see the backlash from in a future episode is the fact that after a fight between Cate and her fiancé, she has another “fluke” with Nate. By the end of the episode, Lux is denied emancipation and temporary joint custody is given to both Nate and Cate.

Because Cate is so honest and blunt, when asked if she ever considered keeping Lux, she replies with a straight forward "no," but with a 15-year-old girl that probably wasn’t the brightest idea for a girl who has been shuffled between homes.

Instantly, I could tell that Nate would have me laughing throughout the episode with his relaxed, laid-back attitude--even after he found out he was a father, he pretty much kept his cool. Cate has the type of passionate personality that made viewers fall in love with Lorelei Gilmore, but she also has her serious side where she knows she needs to work out her issues.

"Life UneXpected" is just that--an unexpected surprise that I know I will be tuning into weekly. With the mix of personalities that will more than likely clash, two people who were just thrown into being parents and are still in the need for some parenting themselves, and don’t forget the drama that comes with raising a teenager who will probably help her parents grow a little each week, that is more than enough to keep my attention.