ABC
Series Premiere Date: September 26th 2018
Reviewed by: Jonathan Andre
A Million Little Things (Pilot)
Starring: James Roday, Allison Miller, Romany Malco, David Giuntoli, Christina Moses, Christina Ochoa, Grace Park, Stephanie Szostak, Ron Livingston
‘…A few years ago I was working on a gig — the first of my career, and it was not a great fit, so I would take these walks at lunch just to try and psych myself up for the afternoon. On one of these lunchtime walks, I ran into a buddy of mine, and we both lit up: “Hey dude, this is great, we should have lunch!” It wasn’t an L.A. thing, we both really meant it. He said, “I’m really busy this week, but how about next week?” I said, “Yes, we’re doing it!” And then he killed himself. It was shocking. We weren’t as close as the guys in the show are, but his death had such an impact on me, because our lives were so similar on paper, and I just couldn’t understand how our endings were so different. I remember being at the funeral, thinking about JFK Jr. on the airplane and how he’d lost sight of the horizon — that speech, which Maggie (Miller) gives in the middle of our pilot, wasn’t actually written for our show. I wrote it a few years ago, just to try and understand how I had lost my friend. Those couple of years after his death were so formative for me, and I thought it was an interesting idea for a show: a group of friends whose lives are forever changed after the friend whose life is the most together, on paper, takes his own life. To me, the show is really about Rome, who almost did something, almost took his life, and instead reaches out for help and makes a change…’ This above quote is not only the basic premise of the new network ABC fall drama, A Million Little Things, but also the story of what really happened to one of creator DJ Nash’s friends not too long ago- which has since become the basis and inspiration behind this new TV drama, that seemingly has many ties, both in a thematic and inspirational sense, to the NBC hit show, This is Us. A Million Little Things, which debuted on Wednesday to basically low ratings, is a story of a group of four friends, who unlikely meet up for the first time in an elevator of all places. Over ten years, through their shared love of ice hockey, have bonded together, some friends beating cancer, others getting married and having kids, while indeed others even becoming sober. Through it all, these friends have stuck together, when out of the blue, the friend that is seemingly the most successful, decides to kill himself. The show starts with this finite act, and the aftermath the suicide has, not only on his immediate family, but also on his friends and other people he knew, as well. The show is titled A Million Little Things, for a purpose, a reference to a line in the pilot that states that friendship is a million little things, the things that seemingly are the small things we do for people, that have the most impact in the end.
