WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for the Cheaper by the Dozen remake, now streaming on Disney+.
Streaming services are great for long format storytelling, enhancing narratives and fleshing out characters, whether it be heroes and villains. This keeps the audience engaged, crafting more nuance and emotional connections than a movie could offer.
It's why some fans have complained about films such as Eternals, Encanto and Scream jamming too much into a limited runtime, doing storylines and sprawling casts a major disservice. Disney's Cheaper by the Dozen is another example that should have been a TV series to reach its full potential.
The remake placed a new spin on the franchise, moving from an all-white story to a blended family led by Zach Braff's Paul Baker and his wife, Zoey (Gabrielle Union), as they moved to Calabasas, CA, to expand their 24/7 breakfast diner. Sure, they faced the same problems of the job cutting into family time and the kids not mixing well in the posh neighborhood, but there were many arcs that got rushed in under two hours.
Firstly, with the exes involved, a series would really have mapped out why Paul and Kate fell out of love, and why Zoey and her superstar athlete, Dom, couldn't make the fancy life work. Flashbacks didn't do their stories justice, especially as they all tried to amicably move forward as a big family when Paul and Zoey got married. In addition, having kids of color created angles for massive social justice statements. Haresh was bullied and called "bin Laden," so a series would have had more time to address anti-Asian sentiment and the xenophobic view that all Brown people are terrorists. There was also Deja getting benched in favor of a rich white girl on her basketball team, because the latter's family was a donor. This was an ideal opportunity for Dom to use his status to educate the school on institutionalized racism.
Paul could have waded into this drama too, proving how white people can show compassion, empathy and learn as a more modern world evolves despite Karens like Anne existing. There was also the arc with Paul's sister, Rachel, who went into rehab. Her misfit son, Seth, came to live with the Bakers, but ran away after being accused of not changing. This deserved more detail, which could have explained why Paul was so eager to embrace lost souls seeking family. It'd have allowed Seth to understand his faults and why his siblings overreacted too. The kids also would have had time to see why Seth's past was so turbulent, working organically to ensure he wasn't a black sheep anymore.
Other aspects that deserved more than just a CliffsNote in the end include Harley's punk band and feminist movement, and Ella moving from being a cosmetic social media influencer wannabe to someone elevating their art. Having the hipster Kate helping these girls -- her daughters -- would then have shown why she stuck around. In addition, Dom bonding with his son, the nerdy DJ, who was totally opposite to him, would have added another dimension than just him trying to warn his kid about the dangers of being a Black youth or trying to undo the gap with a Comic Con trip.
These storylines would have easily filled a season on Disney+, akin to Peacock's Bel-Air, Netflix's Raising Dion and ABC's The Wonder Years reboot. These dove into coming-of-age stories for kids of color in a white world, which ultimately produces something of substance over style. Instead, the new Cheaper by the Dozen short-sells its diverse protagonists and their cultures and ends up two-dimensional with many storylines not receiving enough breathing time.
Watch the newest iteration of the family classic Cheaper By the Dozen, now streaming on Disney+.
Source: Trendz OH
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