On ABC’s new ensemble drama, Lucky 7, a group of seven gas station employees strike it rich with a winning lottery ticket. The cast includes Summer Bishil, Lorraine Bruce, Alexandra Castillo, Christine Evangelista, Stephen Louis Grush, Matt Long, Anastasia Phillips, Luis Antonio Ramos, and Isiah Whitlock Jr.
Will this series be lucky for ABC and bring big ratings? Is it lucky for viewers who are looking for a new dramatic TV series? Well, here’s what some of the critics think:
Salt Lake Tribune: “Yes, TV can be serious. But it should also be entertaining. This is a drab downer of a show filled with characters who are, for the most part, hard to connect with. The money-can’t-but-happiness message is delivered with all the subtIety of a baseball bat to the side of the head. It’s hard to see that Lucky 7 is going any place viewers will want to go, too.”
TIME: “If you’re going to make a character drama like this work on broadcast TV (think, say, Parenthood) you have to execute on a very high level with the show’s writing and voice. It’s early, but so far this lottery-drama shows why that approach has such long odds.”
USA Today: “We know these people are as unhappy at the end of their story as they are at the start. What we don’t know is why we should care how they got there. In this game, everyone loses.”
Newday: “Nice to see an ensemble cast of unknowns getting their shot. But tonight’s setup tries to serve too many masters, detailing myriad settings, character conflicts, mystery and mayhem. It’s hard to grasp the players/plot with everything in the world happening at once… Tonight’s single hour packs in twice as much, with no familiar franchise framework (hospital, etc.) to ease us into its universe.”
Washington Post: “I’m immediately impressed with Lucky 7’s ensemble cast and how quickly the story drew me in and hinted at some further mysteries. Part of that has to do with my relief at watching any drama that isn’t a crime procedural, yet Lucky 7 also has some moral rumination and complexity to it. It’s basically a caper disguised as a drama, and we could use a caper on prime-time TV.”
What do you think? Have you watched Lucky 7? Will you watch again? Would you recommend it to a friend?
