aTVfest: ‘For Life’ — a too timid pilot for a bold series
“For Life” pulled me in with an intriguing premise: Nicholas Pinnock plays Aaron Wallace, a black man unfairly treated by the system, who is incarcerated for a crime he did not commit. Wallace strives to become a lawyer, and helps out his fellow inmates while trying to overturn his own verdict. In the rising number of “fight-the-power” TV series’ from minorities’ points of view, “For Life” certainly has the idea that makes it stand out. Not only is the nature of the premise compelling, it is based on the true story of a man named Isaac Wright Jr.
And yet, in the 40-odd-minute screening of the first episode, I felt little to none of the excitement I had expected. To me, there was little to none of the premise. Instead, there was exposition. A solid, square block of exposition that took up more than half of the runtime, then a speedy fast-forward to show the changes in the life of Aaron’s wife, Marie (played by Joy Bryant). In the panel discussion after the screening, executive producer Hank Steinberg said that they “always knew they wanted to start with a Marie episode” to emphasize the struggles that the families of the incarcerated face.
Why, then, was that nowhere in the advertised premise?
Why was the set up of the Wallaces’ perfect life’s downfall so lengthy, if it was never juxtaposed fully by Marie’s life after Aaron’s imprisonment? How can Marie’s life in “Marie’s episode” be emphasized if seven years was jumped so quickly over, with the only remarkable incidents being two brief moments of flirtation and one singly intense, three-minute conversation?
How does that justify twenty minutes of Hallmark-looking buildup?
Steinberg did explain that the main action of the series, where Aaron learns the law by day and struggles to survive in prison by night, are explored deeply and in length. So why can’t at least a part of that be in the first episode? The only reference to the premise we get is from Aaron talking about it, and a one-minute scene of him reading by the bars of his cell. If the main point of the series is still to tell the story of Aaron Wallace, can’t “Marie’s episode” be second, where it can be told more effectively, when the audience already had some insight and some details to bounce off of?
The producers of “For Life” have a noble story to tell, and they mean to tell it in a noble way. But since it’s a weekly TV show without a discussion panel afterward to enlighten the audience at home, perhaps they should stick to the rule of a pilot episode: establish the main character and start driving the premise. It’s like an establishing shot in a film sequence: it’s not impossible to do without it, but it’s probably going to be quite confusing.
Gauging the Internet reaction to the series, one might say it is a promising show, and I agree. It’s a promising show, yes, it just unfortunately starts with a poor pilot.