NBCs Parenthood - Everything you want in feel-good TV

“I thought I could do it all...but I can't, not now, anyway.”  This from Julia Braverman-Graham, the working mom on my favorite TV show – Parenthood (NBC, Tuesdays, 10pm/9pmCST). 

What I love the most about this show is how well it handles the REALITY of parenthood. You laugh and you cry during this one hour show. You learn things.  You enjoy.  

Julia, soon-to-be partner of her law firm, has always handled being a working mom seamlessly.  Recently, she and her husband Joel adopted an 11-year-old boy.  (They already have a precocious 5-year-old daughter who is used to being the center of their attention.) So in last night’s episode, I was so happy to see Julia losing her mind. Not in a mean way.  But in a relieved, sort of way.  The noise that the children made, the chaos in the morning. She’s trying to juggle everything.  And she’s the type that knows she can.  She can do it all!  Until she can’t.  She has a slight breakdown during breakfast that frenzied morning and she’s been slipping up at work.  So bad that the partners of the firm call her into a meeting in the middle of her son’s baseball game (Gasp! Her leaving the game shocks her large family who all lives close by and happen to have their schedules free to ALL be at this game – that’s the only thing about the show that is hard to believe.  They all get together so much,  so conveniently.  Who knows, maybe that is real but just not my reality since I don’t live close to my family.)  

 

Anyway, in the meeting they tell her, if you still want to be considered for partner, you’re going to have to give us all of you.  You can see the hurt in her face as she wagers her own identity and goals versus her role as mom.  But she knew, as we all know, you can have it all, just not all at once.  Something has to give.  So she said to them, heartbroken, but knowing she’s made the right decision, “I thought I could do it all...but I can't, not now, anyway.”  

Reality!  So many television shows, even the reality shows, have a hard time trying to get down to the root of what is so real. But Parenthood does it with finesse. I feel happier every  time I watch an episode.  You should tune in!  Relatable brings relief.

For Reality in Parenting Try NBC's "Up All Night" - New Fall Lineup

You had me at “Up All Night”.  

Finally, a show that refreshingly highlights REAL life after baby.  You’ve been there.  In the midst of changing a messy diaper, you’ve grabbed for a couple of wipes just to have a seemingly endless string of wipes ribbon out like some amateur magic trick.  You’ve foreshadowed fifteen years into the future envisioning the effects of your parenting on your free-spirited teen.  You’ve felt guilty for wishing for the good ol’ pre-baby days.

Admittedly, the biggest Saturday Night Live fan EVER (this fact has not yet actually been documented), so it’s not much of a surprise that I’m digging this show.  I identified with almost every scenario in the “Up All Night” pilot while LMAO.  You’ve got Maya Rudolph (Ava) who has been cracking me up since 2000.  She plays what I believe to be a pseudo-Oprah, though that may be my reliving her SNL Oprah days.  Of course, I’m a fan of Will Arnett’s (Chris) through association of marriage to his baby mama, SNL’s Amy Poehler.  Mix in a little Christina Applegate (Reagan) - well, a lot…she is the mom we’re all relating with - an actress I’ve admired since she starred in “Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead” (yeah, I went there) and you’ve got yourself an inspiringly real and hilarious cast.  Also, all three are new-ish parents; they know all too well what really goes down between the routine diaper changes and feedings.

Mix this dynamic cast with real life parenting situations including feelings of resentment, arguments over who slept the least last night, returning to work, and even savoring the bliss between moments of pure insanity.  Just this one half-hour (maybe 22 minutes) episode gave me the most relaxing and fun TV moment I’ve had since “Lost” bid adieu to my world last spring.

They score bonus points with the peeps up in the Northeast with using the phrase “wicked hot” a couple of times.  Applegate’s character will make every mom feel okay that she thinks Matt Lauer is talking to her every morning through the television.  And the all-too-familiar hubby’s tattered t-shirt (accompanied by him reciting overplayed memories of him in that shirt) is a brilliant reflection of just about every dad out there and the stories their women have to endure.  The episode ties up as neatly as a layette gift set with the new family daydreaming of the future with their precious little one.

If you’re a mom (or dad) craving “relatable” in form of a television comedy, you’ve found it in “Up All Night”.  Wednesday night on NBC, watch the pilot here, or maybe you’ll randomly catch an episode on BRAVO, like I did.