TV review
The Paramount+ prequel series about the formation of the Pink Ladies Clique works better as a teen comedy than as an hour-long musical
There’s a clear business calculus for a particular segment of streaming television, especially as newer platforms have taken on Netflix: dust off something from the content library (as HBO is reportedly and regrettably considering with the Harry Potter films); stretch the premise before or after, or through a supporting character, or just reboot; and fill between six and ten episodes.
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It’s the formula that gives us such lukewarm IP-based shows as Hulu’s How I Met Your Father, HBO Max’s new Gossip Girl, Netflix’s Cobra Kai, and, even more successfully, Disney’s High School Musical: The Musical: The Series. The 1978 teen classic Grease has undeniable nostalgic appeal and generations of musical theater familiarity. Hence Grease: The Rise of the Pink Ladies, a new Paramount+ prequel series whose charm — a universally winning cast, unrelenting energy, an unwavering appreciation of female friendship — is lost in subpar musical numbers and standard streaming TV bloat.
By that I mean the usual and frustrating tendency to run too long – there are 10 episodes of over 50 minutes (five of which have been made available for review) when half of that would suffice – and a propensity for excess, which accounts for his musical theater ambitions is specific. There’s a lot of overly energetic choreography, some spasmodic and half-baked imaginary sequences, and several unforgettable songs per episode (pop songwriter Justin Tranter composed around 30 original numbers for the show).
Created by Annabel Oakes (writer/director on Atypical and writer/producer on Minx, Awkward and Transparent), Rise of the Pink Ladies at least gets to the premise quickly enough: it’s 1954, four years before the events of Grease, and at the Rydell High School is in the midst of a burgeoning popularity war. (Vancouver, the filming location of many teen shows, doesn’t convincingly represent anywhere in California; the original Rydell was in Venice Beach.) Good girl Jane Facciano (Marisa Davila), the daughter of a half-Italian father and Puerto Rican mother, the older Sister of a middle school-age French man and recently moved from New York, is dating golden boy Buddy Aldridge (Jason Schmidt); both have ambitions to run for student council and president, respectively.
That doesn’t last long, thanks to the evergreen rumor mill. After an ambitiously conceived and lavishly choreographed remake of Grease is the Word, Jane and Buddy are spotted in the back seat of a car. Bragging and doing fine, she’s branded an uneligible slut. A crisis of conscience and anger drives Jane to run for office anyway, bringing together a crew of misfits in the process. There’s the defiant, Rizzo-esque Olivia Valdovino (Cheyenne Isabel Wells), who’s been blacklisted for an alleged affair with her English teacher (Chris McNally), a disturbing storyline the show can’t seem to deal with; one-handed fashionista Nancy Nakagawa (Tricia Fukuhara) dumped by her boy-obsessed best friends; and wild tomboy Cynthia Zdunowski (Ari Notartomaso), desperate to join the T-Bird gang of Mexican-American-Jewish greasers led by Olivia’s brother, Richie (Johnathan Nieves).
In this prequel, the T-Birds and soon-to-be Pink Ladies are upstarts and outcasts who define an emphatically more inclusive and easy-going Rydell versus the white, straight country-club preps of Buddy and his shark-like cheerleader, Susan (Madison Thompson). It’s a lot of boy-versus-girl talk, superficial race and gender politics, primary-colored moral dilemmas, and cheesy riffs on ’50s iconography (the second episode opens with a somewhat catchy number that hyperbolizes stereotypes of the downtrodden housewife). Which is entertaining enough as a teen comedy with a large roster of endearingly played characters. (Even members of the Prep clique are likable, especially Buddy, who’s almost too painfully kind-hearted and conscientious to believe, especially since he befriends his shy, physical neighbor Hazel (Shanel Bailey), one of the few black students Rydel.)
It doesn’t work that well as a musical. The numbers have a repulsive sheen, all music theater-like with a pop flavor and mostly understated and overvoiced. Difficult to tell the voices apart, nor anything from what they are singing (especially Jane). All of the filmed musicals are of course lip-synched, but it’s a little too obvious here, as if the music is spiced up rather than incorporated.
Still, it’s not a common whiff, even for the clear nostalgia lure. Oakes adds a lot of light-hearted, low-stakes fun to the process, such as: B. a whimsical rotating camera for a spin the bottle game. There’s pure visual pleasure that comes from over-the-top high school scenes and flashes of confidence, like when the pink ladies are in formation and pride. But these are just minutes in an hour-long streak. I quite like the original Grease, but it’s hard to imagine anyone but the most ardent fans sticking with it for so long.
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