User Reviews

"The Goldbergs: 1990-Something" is a short film from January 2018, so this one is over five years old now, in fact over six and maybe a bit or even lot more once you get here and read this review of mine. The title gives away that this one features some of the characters from the American television show "The Goldbergs" and apparently this was intended as a pilot episode for a spin-off series. It is inofficially listed as the zeroth episode of the fifth season from "The Goldbergs". This show still went on for over another two years afterwards and it already ran much longer than that by 2018. If you look at the names of the people who made this, you will find a pretty experienced trio, especially director Jay Chandrasekhar and co-writer Adam F. Goldberg and the production company named after him was also in charge here. The other writer Marc Firek may have been the least experienced from the three, but was also far from a rookie. All three of them have worked on multiple episodes from "The Goldbergs". So what went wrong here? Maybe the characters included in here were just not good and interesting enough to make a spin-off series happen, but I don't know. To be honest, I have not (yet) seen "The Goldbergs" and what I saw here does not make too curious to check them out. In terms of the approach to comedy as well. So I would definitely not keep watching this series. Actually, it is a bit unusual to have a (potential) show that takes place at a school and features students and teachers mostly. Relatives from the students as well. It is a concept we do not see too often in television, so it is pretty challenging for sure. Most people think of Disney Channel stuff first maybe or Glee, but this show here tries to be more grown-up than the former with adults being protagonists mostly and well Glee was really more about the music than the comedy, probably even more about the drama as well. In terms of life lessons too.

The cast for this episode here has some familiar faces. Emmy nominee Tim Meadows headlines the pretty large group of people, but if we ignore him for a moment, then we have Missi Pyle and especially Ana Gasteyer who have decent recognition value always, even if that does not mean at the same time that they are talented actors. Strangely enough, they were also hardly in the movie. Blink and you will miss them. Nia Long is probably also more famous and popular than most guys here. The biggest name if we go by awards attention is Oscar winner Octavia Spencer, but she is only a narrator here and also pretty much vanishes in the second ten minutes of this short film that runs for slightly over 20 minutes. What I found interesting towards the end then were the closing credits. They were almost superior to everything before that. Seeing the actors/characters and the real-life people that inspired them was a nice little tribute there and the ones seen on the right must have appreciated it. I am sure they did and were not offended because of how forgettable this film was. I mean it was not awful luckily, so tolerable in a way. Summer Parker for whom this is one of her biggest career efforts to this day, maybe even the number one, is pretty stunning here, but the problem is she plays a nerd or a student who is not liked by others really. I would say she was too good-looking and interesting for a character like this, but that is obviously not her fault, but the casting people are to blame. Still, or maybe because of that, it was nice to see her have such a great moment then towards the end when everybody is joining in with her song.

"I Want It That Way" is of course a classic, but if this show or episode is really so much about the 90s, then it must also be said that the song is from 1999, so the series plays 1999 or later, which takes away the entire 1990s argument there. However, it is a great song also 25 years later and for good reason the band who made it is still really adored by their fans. The inclusion of this song was maybe the best part of this episode. But this does not mean it really made it a good episode because the number in terms of originality has nothing to do with this short film or "The Goldbergs" and also how they used it felt pretty unrealistic that everybody joined in so quickly there after not caring one bit only seconds later. Also tough to perceive Rachel Crow's character than as likable with how she treated the other girl before that and then in the end goes and sits on her table. Good thing is that if I really watch "The Goldbergs", then I do not have to deal with her either. She is not on that show. The spinoff here, had it become a success, would have turned to some extent around the lives of these two young women. But it was not pursued any further, so we will never find out more about those characters. I can live with it because the kids were not too great, but the adults weren't much better. Or at least the way the were written. You can't really blame the actors. They tried their best to hide the flaws from the screenplay a bit, but one can only do so much. You will find examples for these flaws yourself if you watch it, but if we look at one, then I would mention the way the female protagonist behaves what she says shortly before the end and what she says not much later and this performance at the gym completely changed her mind. Did not feel realistic to me, but only for the sake of a somewhat happy ending and a lesson learnt. This potential pilot episode from actually not super long ago is not easy to find at all nowadays. I think it is a good thing because I give the outcome here a thumbs down and I am glad it was this short and did not get closer to the 40-minute mark. Not recommended.

This is what happens when a greedy studio executive desperately tries to reduce a successful and beloved show to a formula. They take the elements of the original show and insert one dimensional P.C. placeholder characters, a couple of smaller characters from the original and cynically insert the pilot into the original series slot. The pilot is horrible from its awkward beginning to contrived musical end (whoops, forgot to mention spoilers). A previous reviewer cited the time Golden Girls attempted this type of stunt: I don't recall that. However, I do remember when Supernatural attempted to make us sit through a cynical money grab and it was horrible. If you like the Goldbergs DO NOT WATCH this.