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The Gospel of Kevin
Logline: Kevin is a down-on-his-luck man who is tasked by God with a mission to save the world.
Cast: Jason Ritter, Cristela Alonzo, India de Beaufort, Dustin Ybarra, Chloe East, J. August Richards
Creators: Michele Fazekas (W / EP), Tara Butters (W / EP), Paul McGuigan (D), Robert Atwood (P)
Studios: ABC Studios TV, Fazekas & Butters
Veteran showrunners Fazekas & Butters had The Death of Eva Sofia Valdez in contention at ABC last year, but that didn’t get picked up. Will they have better luck this time around?
Unlikely. The writing is incredibly lackluster on this one, and I came out of the read underwhelmed. The description is bland throughout, and the character work woefully thin. For instance, for the longest time, all we know about Kevin is that he’s a man who attempted suicide and turned up at his sister’s house for help (hello, Little Miss Sunshine). Generic, much?
The dialogue is weak too, crammed with exposition and cringeworthy conversations. At one point, Yvette, an angel, outrightly tells Kevin (a man who doesn’t believe in God) that as the last identifiable righteous person on Earth, he must help her anoint thirty-five others. This is not something that is easily unread.
The structure and pacing feel problematic as well. The story takes forever to get going. Act breaks don’t feel like turning points, and the story never seems to spin into a new direction, or function as a reversal or important moment of discovery. The stakes are low, and remain low.
This is sort of like Bruce Almighty with a terribly dull Bruce. Or The Skeleton Twins without the humor. I strongly suspect this is not going to get a series order. Unlike This Is Us, being proven wrong in this case is unlikely to make me cheery.
1 Comment
I think the “Ten Days in the Valley” page is mixing up two pilots: the logline and Paula Patton are from “Somewhere Between,” a different series. Ten Days in the Valley is about an overworked TV producer and is led by Kyra Sedgwick.