Show Unexpected (Okay, that is a super lame title, but I'm leaving it)
I have taken plenty of opportunities to rag on The CW in the past. It’s right up there with ABC Family on the list of Networks That Frequently Make Stupid Shows. Vampire Diaries, Melrose Place, The Beautiful Life…these are not shows that inspire confidence, and although I understand the arguments out there regarding the possible insane brilliance of Gossip Girl, it’s just not really my cup of tea. So, without any of my usual research or preparatory reading, I sat down to watch Life Unexpected, a new CW show that I fully expected to be less entertaining than waiting in the security line at an airport.
I watched the pilot episode. Despite the many-tabbed browser window I’d set up full of other things to read and work on while the episode went on the background, I watched it with my almost completely undivided attention. (Okay, okay, I looked up a few recipes for pumpkin muffins. Regardless.)You could have knocked me down with a feather.
It was actually pretty good. Sure, there are some problems, most notably in the overall plausibility of the entire set-up, but the key point here is that none of its problems actually impinged too greatly on an otherwise positive viewing experience. I am italicizing due to my shock.
Cate, Lux and Baze (You may recognize Cate from Roswell fame, and Baze had a recurring role on Mad Men)
The premise of Life Unexpected is a straightforward wacky family plot, with the pilot episode establishing the key characters and relationships with brisk efficiency: Lux, an oddly named sixteen-year-old, has spent her life in the foster care system and is choosing to apply for emancipation to live on her own. In order to do that, she must find her birth parents, which she does with surprising ease, and Lux quickly discovers that her parents are members of the thirtyish, delayed-adulthood, commitment-phobic set, who haven’t seen each other since high school. Her father, Baze, is a bar-owner, while her mother Cate is a talk radio host. In an unsurprising turn two-thirds of the way through the pilot, a judge awards Baze and Cate custody of their biological daughter, and wacky family making ensues.
Baze and Lux bond over Christian the Lion
It sounds like it could be awful, right? It should be far too treacley moralizing, or built on sarcastic barbs about teen pregnancy, or full of absurd, heartwarming hugging scenes like the final act in every episode of Full House. It is pretty sweet, full of finger-picking guitar themes and an especially adorable birthday scene at the end. But the pilot manages to walk a miraculous line, 
making it surprisingly funny, sad, and likeable. The biggest risk is Lux, the abandoned daughter, whose name and character description leave her open to brash, cynical self-deprecation about foster care, but who manages instead to be warm and forgiving while still obviously in need of help. Lux’s parents, too, are appealingly flawed without crossing the line into pitiable. The most moving segments in the pilot are the moments when Cate realizes how hard her daughter’s life has been, and her face falls as she tries to come to terms with her guilt and shock.
Alan Sepinwall has a great piece about Life Unexpected’s interesting heritage as a WB-esque show, and its obvious forerunners – Gilmore Girls, Everwood, Felicity. He worries that his appreciation for the show comes largely out of a sense of nostalgia for that type of programming rather than pleasure in the show itself. I understand his concerns, but at this point I hardly care why I like it as much as I do. It’s so refreshing to watch a CW show full of people who actually want to be happy, with thirty-something characters that look like they’re thirty and high-schoolers who don’t look like twenty-eight year-olds. So come on, Life Unexpected. You have a stupid name, but if you continue to be good, I promise not to hold it against you.