In 1988, 29 million households saw ABC Premiere of “The Wonder Years” A critically acclaimed family drama set in the 1960s that marked one of the most transitional periods in American history. The show engulfed TV audiences in a collective love of nostalgia, even as it pushed the boundaries of the sitcom genre with its realism and its tenuous hold on adolescence.
Now, more than 30 years after the show premiered, “The Wonder Years” returns to ABC (as well as Hulu) on Wednesday night with a new family as its focus. Set in the same period between racial conflict, war and the flu pandemic that killed 100,000 americans, the sitcom this time focused on the Williams, a black middle-class family living in Montgomery, Alabama.
the director “The Wonder Years” alum Fred Savage, who starred as 12-year-old Kevin Arnold in the original, the new series looks like a relic of the past, from the costumes to the musical terms to the set design. Yet it has never been longer.
We live in a polarized era in which days feel so isolated that it can be easy to forget that this country has found its way through equally tumultuous moments in the past. Revisiting “The Wonder Years” provides a clear throughline into that past and allows viewers to connect modern-day movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo to a bygone era. Of course, telling our history through a sitcom makes it more digestible for those who might otherwise dismiss these important topics.
Despite the uncertainty and chaos of the ’60s, what made the original series magnetic was the anxieties and concerns of tweens and teens alike. Like its predecessor, this version of “The Wonder Years” vividly captures the past few years of “purely unadulterated childhood”—as adult Kevin puts it. original series pilot. This time, they are experienced by Kevin’s counterpart, Dean (Elisha “EJ” Williams), as perceived from the point of view of his adult self.
While the Williams is a black Southern family living during the Civil Rights Movement, Dean is primarily concerned with baseball, living up to the perceived perfection of his siblings and comic-book-loving tomboy Keisa Clemons (Milan Ray), which is his purpose. Passion. Nevertheless, the events of the ’60s directly affect Dean in such a way that he never touched Kevin.
In the opening scene of the series, the adult Dean (narrator Don Cheadle) mentions that his parents have already had “police talks” with him; At the core, racial profiling and police brutality are things Kevin has never had to contend with. and conspired for a deeper engagement with the Vietnam War. In the previous series, the elder brother of Vinnie (Kevin’s love interest) dies in battle. This time, Dean’s older brother, Bruce, is the one who is fighting.
In addition, the world around Dean is changing rapidly, and it’s not just overseas; His neighborhood and school have also been changed. Although Alabama enacted a law prohibiting school segregation in 1966, by 1968, when the show began, integration had taken effect.
In the backdrop of the narrative, as Dean’s all-black elementary school closes its doors, Dean, his best friend, Corey (Amarie O’Neill), and the rest of the neighborhood kids are sent to the now mixed Jefferson Davis Jr. Is. High School. How ironic that the school was named for union president.
As the reboot begins, Adult Dean notes that last summer’s race riots created a The exodus of white people, or “white flight,” from Montgomery. By the start of the school year, most of the students at Dean’s school have adjusted to integration, but moments of subtle aggression and outright racism persist, from white students’ refusal to use the water fountain to teacher’s insensitive remarks. till.
In keeping with the original show, “The Wonder Years” reboot pilot opens at a time when everything changes for Dean. While he’s focused on winning a baseball game, perhaps the most horrifying moment of the year happens: the death of Martin Luther King Jr. It was news that would ricochet across the black community and around the world, effectively changing everything that came next.
For all its acceptance of the social unrest of the era, however, “The Wonder Years” isn’t a heavy show. Many black families, such as the Williamses, lived full and strong lives in which they did not have to consider white people and whiteness in every moment of their existence. The Adult Dean noted that his all-black neighborhood was a hotbed of warmth and security, filled with entrepreneurs, veterans, and an entire community of people who looked like him.
The new “Wonder Years” have moments of ultimate joy and fervor, but it also proves that history keeps shouting at us from the past. Fifty-five years later, if we continue to ignore the lessons of previous generations, we will find ourselves in an endless cycle of repetition. This is why a rebooted show resonates so much at the moment.