'Everwood'

A couple of weeks ago, I won an online contest through my synagogue for a free television show on Amazon. I was excited about it, especially because I knew it would open up my options when writing this column; however, the pickings were extremely slim. I ended up choosing the drama "Everwood" (2002 - 2006), set in the fictional small town of Everwood, Colo.The series starts with the arrival of Dr. Andy Brown (Treat Williams), a widower who leaves his job as a neurosurgeon in Manhattan in the wake of his wife’s death in order to better get to know his two children, Delia (Vivien Cardone) and Ephram (Gregory Smith).

This is the first drama I’ve watched in a while, and I was excited to get back into the genre. Most episodes of "Everwood" have arcs dealing with Dr. Brown’s patients’ problems, which always get miraculously solved by the end of the hour, and a story line involving drama related to the main characters. These plots almost always focus on the relationship between Ephram and local sweetheart Amy (Emily VanCamp) or a conflict between Ephram and his dad. Issues for the family also include a hidden pregnancy and the death of a basketball legend and town superstar at the hands of Dr. Brown. The show is strong throughout all its seasons and does an excellent job of bringing back previous drama to build on existing plot lines.

As unrealistic as the plot was at times, I really got emotionally sucked in. It was intense watching Ephram and Amy grow up from early teens into more fully formed adults, and I was rooting for their love for all four seasons of the show.

One really special thing about this show is that it illustrates the sort of mundane aspects of everyday life not usually seen in most televisions shows. There are countless lengthy scenes that show Amy in her room with friends, on the phone or on the computer. There are also many shots of Brown family members taking food out of their refrigerator and then eating it, with no other action. I think that this was the result of unintentially bad screenwriting, maybe to help fill time in the show. However, this actually helped to create more believable characters, something that I think few television shows actually manage to do.

The relationships between characters really made me want to be a part of "Everwood." This was especially a result of binge-watching the show because, every day for a week, I felt like I lived alongside the characters. I also found myself less interested in the drama of the main characters and more invested in the actual medical cases of the patients, especially trying to figure out what caused their ailments before Dr. Brown did. Watching the show was also a throwback to a time 10 years ago I barely remember. It was sometimes even jolting being so immersed in a pre-iPhone world while watching the show and then coming back to reality.