Shane Life

Six Degrees is JJ Abrams’ (the creator of Lost, Alias, Mission Impossible: III) newest television venture an it appears Thursday nights at 9 p.m.

As I was watching last night’s episode (which you can view for free on the ABC web site), I was thinking to myself, ‘You know, there’s not a ton to this show. It’s all about good characters and interesting relationships. But it’s still really good.’ It’s a relatively simple concept for a show, but it’s executed so well. The real twists come in the nature of how everyone is connected.

A lot of the people I’ve talked to (do you hear me, Jason?) find the show “boring” or “depressing”, but to me, it’s just about perfect. The characters aren’t ridiculous caricatures of life – they’re real people who we can relate to. There’s nothing particularly remarkable about them or their story lines; they’ve all made mistakes and are trying to live their lives the best they can.
That’s what makes me appreciate this show even more – the show is about normal people and it is still interesting because the writing captures real life so well. The more that went wrong in Steven’s life last night (he’s the aging photographer), the more believable it became because sometimes it just feels like life’s pitfalls snowball on us and there’s no end in sight.
I hope that this show stays on the air. I haven’t heard a ton about its ratings, but I also haven’t heard anything about its struggles either. I can’t imagine it is a cheap show, considering it is shot on location in Manhattan and contains some really big actors (Hope Davis, Bridget Moynahan, Jay Hernandez, Erika Christiansen, Zoe Saldana). I hope that ABC gives it time to develop an audience…they likely will since it’s a JJ show, but you never know with the morons they have in TV these days.