Let the cynics jeer that in Hollywood nobody reads. Ink-stained fingers along studio row say different. Why, before the ink is dry on the page, a newspaper headline has been read, read again, then turned into a storyline for next week’s L.A. Law or Murphy Brown script.
Episodic TV has never been more topical; and, for the most part, that’s a good thing.
But being stylishly out of date has its own peculiar virtues, as ABC’s Homefront proves twice this week – first in a never-before-aired episode at l0.p.m. Tuesday and then, two days later, when reruns resume as the series moves to a new time slot, 9 p.m. Thursdays.
This dramatic series dwells in modern times of more than 40 years ago. It is ripped from yesterday’s headlines, and lovingly so.
All this you know if you’re a Homefront fan. But you probably aren’t. At the tail-end of its first season, the series occupied a dismal 67th place in Nielsen viewership.
Why? As one character says to another in a vintage turn of phrase, “You tell me and we’ll both know.”
Homefront is about the people of a Midwestern city in the late 1940s. It’s a dizzying, dazzling time, with World War II just behind them and unlimited possibilities sighted ahead.
But, in this post-war period, easily tossed off in retrospect as innocent or quaint, passions run deep. It may be called peacetime, but conflicts rage between races, classes and genders. Love hurts. And, through it all, a reigning concern is – what will the neighbors think?
Homefront is a populous show, with no fewer than 14 actors billed in the opening credits. For the viewer to confront such a sizable ensemble, made up almost entirely of unfamiliar faces, can be daunting at first. Maybe that’s one reason the show hasn’t yet caught on.
Add to that the handsome but initially overpowering period design, along with the assured but unhurried pace of the unfolding tale, and the series may strike some viewers as requiring Cliff Notes.
Not so. But to help newcomers, here’s a tip sheet for tonight’s developments – at least, some of them:
Mike Sloan Jr: the dead war hero, will be mourned.
His socialite mother Ruth (Mimi Kennedy) will stew about her son’s socially unworthy friends who have come to the house to pay their respects, and about his widow Gina (Giuliana Santini), an Italian war bride who now is living with her disapproving in-laws.
Ruth’s husband, Mike Sr. (Ken Jenkins), is a tough, multi-prejudiced businessman who owns the local factory. But he loves his son, and in a touching moment he will pour two scotches and toast Mike Jr. in the office the young man would have occupied as the firm’s new vice president.
Jeff Metcalf (Kyle Chandler), too young to go to war, has stayed home and, in the absence of his older brother Hank (David Newsom), fallen in love with Hank’s sweetheart Sarah Brewer (Alexandra Wilson). Jeff will try to break the news to his brother, who as it happens will be too drunk to understand a word he hears.
Robert Davis (Sterling Macer Jr.), son of the Sloans’ domestic and chauffeur (Hattie Winston, Dick Anthony Williams), has returned from war a decorated hero only to find that a black man’s valor means little to white workers at the factory, where he will face his first workday.
Finally, lest you think things will be unremittingly somber, Hank and his pal Charlie Hailey (Harry O’Reilly) will pull a caper out of respect for their late comrade Mike and steal his casket from the funeral home for a night.
That last item should demonstrate that, for all its high-mindedness, Homefront has its mischievous side.
Soap is part of the formula, too. And little wonder. Co-creators Lynn Marie Latham and Bernard Lechowick are a husband-and-wife team who both worked on Knots Landing. They share the title of executive producer with David Jacobs, who created Knots Landing and Dallas.
For those who pine for a bygone nation, perhaps one that never existed, the America of Homefront could be what they dream about.