The Wonder Years spoilers reveal the series premiere is in the books. One September 22nd, we were introduced to the Williams family. We went into this thing with the lowest expectations possible.
We’ve seen too many remakes that were a mess. Gilmore Girls, anyone? While this isn’t perfect, we think this remake has some potential. Let’s take a look at the premiere.
The Wonder Years spoilers: Meet the Characters
The series, much like the original, centers around a 12-year-old boy. Dean Williams (Elisha “EJ” Williams), like Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage), is a typical kid with crushes, family stuff, and other problems.
His father, Bill Williams (Dulé Hill), is a musician who seems to be on his way. In the premiere, he had a song played on the radio and ended up buying his wife a gift with the royalty check.
The music geek in us agrees with mom’s “Be Cool” with the spending, as we’ve seen a lot of examples of singers taken advantage of financially in that time. Some were massive stars who died penniless because of that.
As for the mother, Lillian Williams (Saycon Sengbloh), she seems like a feistier version of Norma Arnold (Allie Mills). She seems both the ideal image of a mother, while also being a little more in control than Norma was. She helps with Dean’s Baseball team and didn’t hesitate to back Dean up on his desire to play a game with white children.
The character we’ll really be keeping our eye on is the sister, Kim Williams (Laura Kariuk). We think, much like with Karen Arnold (Olivia D’abo), she’ll be the source of a lot of conflict in that house.
But while Karen was more about the hippie thing, it seems Kim is heading down a slightly darker path. In the premiere, Dean saw a picture fall out of his sister’s book that looked like her holding a gun. So, we think she’s going to take more drastic action for change than Karen did. And we’re sure her parents won’t approve.
The Wonder Years spoilers: First impressions
First, we have to say this is only the first episode. So, it’s possible this thing can go astray, but we’ll see. For now, they did their best to keep the dialogue, voiceovers, and situations reminiscent of the original. We loved the parents simultaneously saying to stay out of grown people’s business more than once.
We also loved how they showed the problematic side of kid’s sports when Bill stepped in during that aforementioned game to try coaching from the sidelines. Poor Dean was left confused and humiliated on the field as a result.
We think it was fitting they did the nod to Vietnam, by having an older brother at war, which the mother calls him being “away”. As of yet, there’s no other brother listed, so it’s possible this will be a Brian Cooper moment, where Winnie Cooper’s (Danica McKeller) older brother dies at war. But we’ll see.
We loved that they balanced things like in the original as well. They had some funny moments as well nostalgic ones, plus a big emotional one, like in the original. This time, it was the news of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s death. Great acting and writing over all, and we’re hopeful they can keep it up.
The Wonder Years spoilers: One thing
If there is one thing that’s a little iffy, it’s the timing. And we brought this up in another article. When the Wonder Years originally came out, it was telling the story of a ‘60s/’70s coming of age in the ‘80s.
So, with only about 20 years difference between real-world time and show time, you could easily tell the story through the eyes of grown Kevin as he sometimes made reference to his own kids.
In this one, we’re looking at 50-plus year difference. This is problematic, because it changes the relationship with the audience and the nostalgia. Grandparents/Great Grandparents will remember those times now, not parents.
And when they made a reference to Dean having to go to sensitivity training when he talked to his son’s team the way his old coach did, it doesn’t quite make sense, as that wouldn’t really be a common thing when Dean was the parent coaching. So, we can see some other things like that ahead, and we’re not sure how we feel about that. We’ll see how it goes.
