Aquellos maravillosos años

As a black female who watched the original Wonder Years at the age of 10, I feel like whoever greenlighted this series misunderstood why it worked when it did. In the 80s there was a a great deal of 60s nostalgia, especially with music. The Beach Boys we're back on the charts and Frankie & Annette were once again movie stars. Young people nowadays feel the same kind of nostalgia about the 90s, if not later. And quite frankly, 35 years later, I find the characters somewhat unrelatable. In the reboot, I find them downright unlikable. There isn't even a soundtrack so good that I can ignore the unremarkable casting.

I love the premise of the show. As a black American with solid roots in the South, I was disappointed that they opt'd to not have the actors speak with southern accents.

While I love Dule Hill as Burton Guster, his character was a miscast, in my opinion. It would have been better if he used his own speaking voice versus the one he chose.

I do appreciate the topics they discussed, as I found them very relevant and relatable to my life; however, I believe they should have made it about a family in the 80s vs the 60s. Would have been great to see a Cosby Show 2.0 but not trying to actually BE the Cosby Show. I believe it would have definitely been more relatable to a wider audience.

Now I'm usually the first to call out the woke society but the pilot was fantastic. Stop calling it a remake. Stop jumping to conclusions. Give it a chance. Things actually happen this way back then. No matter what you want to believe.

I was a little skeptical about this reboot, but I actually found it to be pretty good. It's a charming show about a 12 year old boy discovering his path in life. It's a charming premise, and it's handled well. The show can also be deep and emotional, with the death of Martin Luther King affecting everyone. Some issues is that a little to much happens in this episode, and there could be a little less of Don Cheadle's narrating. Not that he does a bad job, he does a great job, be he sometimes talked over scenes that shouldn't have needed narration.

But besides that, it a charming take on the Wonder Years, that's also deep and emotional.

Usually I am adamantly against remakes. So much so that I refuse to watch them. What's the point honestly? Have you seen what they've done to shows like He-Man. Knight Rider or the movie Nightmare on Elm Street? If they remake Three's Company, The Golden Girls or The Wiz (yes, it's a remake but it doesn't count) I'm jumping off the edge of the planet.

Initially I rolled my eyes over Wonder Years 2.0 but when I saw Don Cheadle in the credits I took a chance. I'm glad that I did. The Wonder Years 2.0 makes sense because it's not re-telling the same story about the same family. We are now on the other side of the city with a Black family and this changes everything. I love what they've done so far and I can't wait for them to really dig into this decade from our perspective.