RISE — Page 3

I'm one episode behind (didn't catch last night's), but so far have been sort of enjoying the show. It just feels very unrealistic.

BrodyFosse123 said: "I heard from a journalist friend that NBC is cancelling the series. It won’t be back for a Season 2 due its ratings. "

Sadly, that’s not too surprising. I think even if the quality had been higher, this show would’ve had trouble finding a broader audience.

BroadwayStar4 said: "Miles2Go2 said: "Sadly, that’s not too surprising. I think even if the quality had been higher, this show would’ve had trouble finding a broader audience."

Nah, it would have found an audience. The problem is that the show alienated their intended audience by straight-washing the main character. NBC and Rise received major backlash because of that, and their explanation didn't convince anyone."

I agree that the show did itself no favors in regards to the straight-washing, but I also realize that as large of a contingency of us theatre-goers as there are, we are likely not a big enough group to prop up a show like Rise. If it had been better quality and hadn’t faced a backlash from the get-go, it might have gotten one more season (I’m assuming the rumors are true that it won’t be renewed), but then it would’ve faced the same fate as Smash. Other somewhat comparable shows (music - Nashville; high school - Friday Night Lights) also struggled to find audiences and only survived more seasons due to being rescued by other networks after their original networks cancelled them over poor ratings. Of course, those shows had fans that advocated for them and they appealed to larger audiences (country music, football). That won’t happen for Rise. The only recent music-related shows that I can think of that could be considered successes are Glee and Empire. Both appeal(ed) to broader bases than musical theater fans like us. I’m a fan of all these other shows I have compared Rise to. Glee was not always well written (especially after season 2), but it was entertaining and appealed to a broader base. It also felt novel at the time. Empire is one of my guilty over-the-top pleasures. It’s seems to be in on the joke that it’s not terribly well-written, has ridiculous plots, and is campy, but it appears to a broad R&B/hip-hop-loving audience (of which I’m one) and is fun and moves at a good pace.

I guess what I’m saying is that even if Rise a) hadn’t faced a backlash and b) had been better written, the anticipated audience still wasn’t large enough to sustain it past one more season unless it drastically changed its tone to more closely resemble Glee/Empire. I don’t like football, but loved Friday Night Lights, but I don’t think most of my friends (football loving and otherwise) would have given Rise a chance no matter what.

At least if it had been better-written, it could’ve been a show that found a second life on streaming networks or on another channel. I doubt that’s going to happen now.

AllThatJazz2 said: "The show has officially been cancelled after one season.

I thought it was problematic but hoped if they got a second season they could retool a bit and try to improve. It had potential. "

Even though the show was a hot mess, I did look forward to watching it next week. It is so rare to see these type of shows on tv. It makes me sad too although I understand why it was canceled.

The real-life guy that Josh Radner's character is based off of is gay. However, the character in the show is straight, hence straight-washing.

The series really just wasn't as good as it could've been. I really think it could have been realistic and still a good show. It was as if no one who wrote the show had ever done theatre even in school. Was a huge disappointment in my book.

This is also from John Russell's article.

"Inspired by New York Times Magazine writer Michael Sokolove’s 2013 book Drama High, the show tells the story of a Pennsylvania steel town English teacher’s efforts to revitalize his high school’s theater program by staging a production of Spring Awakening."

Did Russell read Drama High? The first part of the sentence is correct, the second part is wrong. Lou Volpe did not need to revitalize his high school's theatre program by staging Spring Awakening!

His being gay is not the primary focus of the book.

I've never understood why so many high school theater stories are built around the love life of the hot popular jock. One of the reasons my fellow theater kids and I did shows was to get away from the hot popular jocks. Then the arguments pop up that the quirky theater fans aren't enough to support a show about theater kids... which always leaves me wondering just who is this for? The hot popular jocks of the world aren't going to support shows like High School Musical, Glee and Rise no matter how many of them you cast in the leading roles. Pushing the theater lovers and minorities to the sidelines alienates the folks that should have been your target audience.

It was a poorly constructed TV show, period. And, I expected more since I love both Friday Night Lights as well as Parenthood.

I honestly feel that this show could have been akin to Friday Night Lights. For that show, you don't need to have an interest in or know thing one about football. But, that which was going on around the characters is what made the show interesting. One could enjoy the hell out of it with zero knowledge or interest of football. Rise, could have, and had plenty of chances to do something similar in vein. While washing aside, I enjoyed the scenes of them rehearsing Spring Awakening. Maybe that's because I love theatre. But, anything else that wasn't that was poorly done. Be it the religious parents angry that their son is playing a gay character in the show. Or, the also poorly constructed plot line of the two girls angry at one another because one girl's single mom is sleeping wit the other girl's father who's the football coach and married too.

Updated On: 5/14/18 at 05:40 PM