You ever notice when you fall asleep watching something on Netflix and that slideshow of Netflix movies and shows starts to play? Yeah, that happened to me about a week ago and every time I woke up, I kept seeing the slide for the show “One Day at a Time”. Now, a little bit about myself. You know how they say, “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover?” Well, in high school, that’s how I decided which books I would check out. Random but this ties into how I started to watch this show. The slide was bright, friendly and it intrigued me so I found the show and started watching it. Here’s what I think.
First off, I didn’t realized that “One Day at a Time” was a show in the 80’s. My momma gave me that bit of information. Now I have more knowledge to go off of. Either way, I love this version of this show. Let’s explore the remix.
The legendary Norman Lear remixed his own show to bring his audience a funny Cuban-American family headed by a mother, Penelope (Justina Machado) who is an Army vet and an immigrant grandmother (Rita Moreno) straight from Cuba. The dad is still in Afghanistan and mom and dad are in the middle of a divorce. The women raise a teenage girl and boy in a three bedroom home. (Grandma lives in what should have been the dining room with a drawn curtain. This is apart of a lot of jokes throughout the series.)
Lear has always been a trailblazer in television. His goal was to always give his audience a mirror of themselves. Shows like “Good Times”, “All in the Family” and “The Jeffersons” were shows that exposed real life of every day Americans and this show is no different. Although the show is a comedy, we get life lessons about depression, being an immigrant, voting, sexual orientation and more. Secretly, I love this show because it’s not a typical Hispanic American family. Rarely, do we get to seen Hispanics on our screens that are not Mexican or Puerto Rican. For me, it’s like a treat to see other walks of Hispanic life because there are a wide variety of Hispanic experiences.
My favorite episode is probably Elena’s, Penelope’s daughter’s, quinceanera. What is usually a tradition
Everyone has their moment to be comic relief, mainly the landlord Schneider is the comic relief in this remixed comedy, but everyone also has their moment of tenderness. You will learn something from every character you come in contact with and that is why I love this show.
So..
Should you watch this show?
Absolutely. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry but most of all, you’ll learn.
Season 3 of “One Day at a Time” debuts February 8th. Each season is about ten episodes and you can binge the first two seasons now. I finished the third season today and I was thoroughly surprised by the ending. Can’t wait for season four!
BLACK WATCH 