I have great regrets that of all the TV that I've watched lately, this is the only one I had time to review. Hopefully, more stuff to come.
“Lost and Found Studios” is about a group of teenagers in an
“elite music program” of people of indiscriminate age in an
indiscriminate mid-sized city, with an indiscriminate means of paying for it
all.
It’s one of those shows where it seems like I'm putting more
thought into it than the people who created it. Does Mr. T's exclusive program consist of
letting kids just hang around his studio all day and what's in it for him when
studio time is at such a premium? Does the program offer instruction other than
Mr. T sternly crossing his arms and playing referee in disputes? Why do the
parents (especially those of introverted Eva) trust Mr. T?
But that’s ok because to try to answer these questions would
involve icky things for this tweeny-bop genre like involving parents and as the
kid with the red headphones learned when his mom crashed his audition, parents
are not allowed! The creators of this show know that it’s a cash cow for
tweeny-boppers so long as they populate it with an array of diverse vanilla
personalities and produce a queue full of songs on iTunes where they can get a
juicy second stream of revenue. On this note, it’s curious how the combined
song writing talents of a group of some two dozen kids produces songs in the
exact same genre.
The characters are all filled out by uniformly mediocre
actors (they’re likely teenagers so I’m not expecting big things) but it’s also
curious that the adults on screen (John and Luke’s piano teacher’s widower)
exhibit that same lack of ability.
Which begs the question (One I’m still trying to figure out
as I write this): Why did I gobble up all fourteen episodes if I was able to see through it so
immediately?
My initial answer was that I thought it might give some insight
into modern-day songwriting and working in a studio and there’s a certain
amount of that there. On the whole, though, the show is just plain hokey like
the songs themselves. The story is both written and acted broadly for a teen
audience, but it wasn’t enough to detract me from wanting to know what happened
next.
If I had to pinpoint one factor that kept the first season
from getting drab, it’s that the show had some edgier plotlines than one might
have expected. One of the main characters, John, is dealing with the death of
his mother which puts a dark twist on what
is the season’s only major romantic pairing (which is pretty curious in
its own right since this show is playing to a demographic that thrives on
hookups in fiction). Another, Clara, gets outright depressed and nasty despite
the fact that it seemed like the show bible was “keep all the characters
uniformly bubbly and cheerful.” Eva, a noticeable introvert, seems to hide some
insecurities that begs one to want to know more. Leah (who perhaps has more
screentime than anyone else), starts out as a ditzy girl blind to an
unrequieted crush, but she’s gradually revealed to be a villainess of high
proportions.
Whether, these plotlines might have been stuff that slipped
through the cracks or were part of the grand scheme of things, it takes the
show above standard teeny-bop fare.
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