"People here have music in the soul," gushes princess of
tides Karen Allen after bustling kith and kin back to her precious
North Carolina home. Name that tune?
The melody's straight from Tin Ear Alley. If this is what going
home again is all about, avoid the potholes.
The Road Home is the second new show in a week where
parents uproot their kids from "the big city" to settle in a relative
backwater and wonder why their myopic wanderlust is met with
scowls and rebellion. "Maybe we're at a crossroads. Maybe change
is in the air," says Allen's lunkish husband, Terence Knox.
Maybe something sinister is in this tidewater, some pod-person
pond scum that makes people talk like samplers: "To plant for
seasons, plant flowers. To plant for eternity, plant children," says
fussy grandma Frances Sternhagen. Married to crusty Ed
Flanders, she's given to blackouts during walks in the woods. Maybe
time passes faster that way.
At least in ABC's Byrds of Paradise, featuring an equally trite (but
better played) family, we have the natural splendor of Hawaii
presented in somewhat realistic terms of economic decline,
ethnic pride and multi-cultural mystery.
The most The Road Home can offer is a pungent look at a
failing shrimping business and a quaint view of North Carolina
that ends with everyone dancing fully clothed in the rain. They may
not know better, but surely we do.
It would be nice to applaud each of these well-meaning family
dramas emerging in the wake of corny Dr. Quinn's surprise
success. But we're still waiting for the next Life Goes On or I'll Fly
Away to fight for. When the tone is as syrupy-artificial as it is here,
choking on cheap sentiment, you almost pine for a sitcom's laugh
track.
Copyright © 1994 Gannett Co., Inc.