Sunday 18 March 2018

Life Sentence | Review (The CW)



Life Sentence is a melodramatic comedy/drama starring Lucy Hale as Stella Abbott, a former teenage cancer patient who recently discovers, to her surprise, that she is "no longer dying" and can now carry on living her life with her family and husband.
After this revelation, she begins to realise that her entire life has been a lie; her family have been keeping dozens of secrets from her because they did not want to stress her out because, you know, she was dying of cancer. 

The Abbott's family secrets are all the typical secrets you would expect to find in a whimsical show like Life Sentence. Stella's mother is a lesbian, her father is in debt, her sister is in a loveless marriage whilst her douche bag man/child brother is involved in an affair with a married woman. Her British husband, whom she met in France during her dying days, does actually want to have children and he only told her he didn't because she was dying! There are several other couple-related problems, like her falling asleep on his arm, that he does not like but does anyway because she was dying. All in all, the characters in Life Sentence are not very appealing despite the show's constant attempts to be lighthearted and whimsical, and Stella's adorkable personality is not enough to carry this show for its forty-five minute run time. 

Unfortunately, The CW's search for a comedy drama to compliment Jane The Virgin looks set to continue for at least another development season. But, can you blame them? Jane The Virgin makes the absurd believable all whilst being extremely entertaining, heartwarming and clever easy. Cancer continues to be a difficult subject for television to deal with in a believable way, especially when they attempt to do so in a more lighthearted show like Life Sentence. As Jane The Virgin ventures into a breast cancer arc following Xo's diagnosis, it will be interesting to see how the show deals with cancer as it has dealt with several other sensitive topics in past with heart and humour.


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