REVIEW: CHERISH THE DAY

CHERISH THE DAY - I've only watched the season 2 premiere thus far. Let's talk exposition in screenplays.

CHERISH is always beautifully shot. The characters start off likable, redeemable, and relatable. Plus, #blacklove. Nuff said.

S2E1 is filled with exposition. Exposition is all of the backstory about a character or the world that a writer feels the viewer needs to know in order to journey with them through the story. There are literally back to back scenes of nothing but dialogue rehashing the past 25 years since our couple has seen each other. But those dialogue heavy scenes slow down the pacing. So why do it?

The premise sets the series up for this. Each episode jumps into the future of the relationship hoping to share the couple's full journey of ups and downs with the audience. Because of this, the show pushes all of the exposition into one moment. We have to get these people to fall for each other quickly and the audience must invest in their relationship in order for the series to work. 

IMO, this is one of the reasons the series doesn't work - or at least season 1 didn't. Because we jump into the future of the relationship in each episode, it's hard to invest in the couple. They are literally different people and a different couple in a different stage of life each time we meet them because people grow and change over time. We continue to jump into their moments of crisis, which then can make one or both characters unlikable because, "Are you ever happy?!" Seeing the effect without the cause is detrimental to the series. 

I want to be wrong about Season 2. So I'm watching. I mean the maintitle sequence is Sade! What say you?

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author

Shannan E. Johnson is a former creative executive at The Syfy Channel turned CEO + Head Consultant of The Professional Pen, a script consultancy that develops screenwriters from idea to pitch to become more confident storytellers ready for a professional screenwriting career, and consults with scripted development teams at entertainment companies to streamline their notes process to get to pre-production more efficiently.