“Good Fall TV: No Place Like Homefront”
by Matt Roush, USA Today, Sept. 17, 1992
Three out of four stars
“Holy moley.” “OK-fine.” “Yeah, maybe it’s corny.”
Music to my ears. And we’re not just talking big band.
No “yo’s” in Homefront, where they speak in a sweet, calm, lingo like nothing else on TV. In 1946, the only dude in sight might be on a ranch.
In one of the loudest and emptiest seasons on record, with most new prime-time drama ceded to the just-weaned-off-Clearasil set, the tenuous survival of the nostalgic serial Homefront is something to celebrate. Here is escapist entertainment without apology, lacking pretensions, with an almost too-light touch. Beats being hammered over the head.
Tonight’s second-season opener is titled “By Popular Demand” for good reason. Although ratings were middling in its first year, the audience it attracted was a loyal one, and vocal. Fans lobbied hard to keep this on, but against Cheers and Street Stories, it will remain an uphill battle.
It’s worth the fight. The show’s clever writers have made it easy to get re-acquainted, structuring the premiere episode around a visit to “the typical American city” of River Run, Ohio, by a Look photographer one year after VJ Day.
For Jeff and Ginger (Kyle Chandler and Tammy Lauren), the series’ cuddly couple, this could be more than just a photo opportunity. Jeff’s a Cleveland Indians rookie up for a product endorsement, but being sabotaged by a rival. Ginger, dreaming of stardom from a radio switchboard, tries in vain to anticipate the photographer’s next move.
Their comical exploits take an O. Henry twist, fitting for an hour so smartly put together even the “previously on...” montage is edited well.
Meanwhile, a messy triangle develops between good-guy Charlie (Harry O’Reilly) and his two European war wenches; new careers are pursued; and starting next week, the ugly works “aluminum prefab housing development” – i.e. suburbs – enter the lexicon.
Next week finds Homefront taking an even frothier tone, focusing on Ginger’s misadventures in radio, improbably landing her a shot as the singing, dancing Lemo Tomato Juice girl.
You’ve just got to love a show that ends with this colorful ultimatum: “Ya get hitched, ya forfeit yer tomatoes!”