...and I'm not talking religion, though that's in this. Benjamin Bratt plays William Banks (loosely based on the life of Warren Boyd) who's a recovering drug addict, and now helps others get clean, as well. The problem I had with this episode is the inserting of technical facts into the dialogue and it seemed to come out of nowhere, and seemingly directed at the person watching the episode rather than a part of the dialogue within the fictional setting of the show. It was weird, to say the least. Now, it only really happened a few times but still...it seemed entirely out-of-place.
On the other hand: there was an actual story here. A story about a kid who got with the wrong sort of guy after his father died and there were good dramatic scenes of that, then cut to preaching about the dangers of drugs--as if this was intended to be an 'After School Special' from the 1980s. Man, I hated those as a kid, and it didn't teach me anything because I stopped watching them. No one likes to be preached at unless in church, or something.
There's some good music in this though, it seemed louder than the dialogue, at times; overall, I hope the series got better than this effort; it's an important subject but the one true 'preaching' they should have done (going that route) was: an addict, recovered or not, is always an addict. That wasn't in there and that's the most important message of all. Maybe it's in future episodes.
On the other hand: there was an actual story here. A story about a kid who got with the wrong sort of guy after his father died and there were good dramatic scenes of that, then cut to preaching about the dangers of drugs--as if this was intended to be an 'After School Special' from the 1980s. Man, I hated those as a kid, and it didn't teach me anything because I stopped watching them. No one likes to be preached at unless in church, or something.
There's some good music in this though, it seemed louder than the dialogue, at times; overall, I hope the series got better than this effort; it's an important subject but the one true 'preaching' they should have done (going that route) was: an addict, recovered or not, is always an addict. That wasn't in there and that's the most important message of all. Maybe it's in future episodes.