I struggle to find series that I actually like well enough to stick with them for the long run. Sport series and films are a quick way to my heart though, and I tend to be a lot more forgiving towards them than I would be for almost anything else. I think this is why I keep talking about how great Ted Lasso is when in reality it is probably just and "average at best" series.
With Chad Powers I think I actually came out in support of the first season, then time went by and I forgot that it existed. Then season 2 was released and I was like "oh good! I really liked that first season!" then watched 2 episodes and wanted to throw the remote at the television.
So what changed? It's hard for me to say but it is a combination of a lot of implausible things, some rather stupid relationships, and forced comedy that isn't really that funny would be a good place to start.
So what is Chad Powers? It starts out innocently enough. A star college quarterback disgraces himself and "overstays his welcome" in the spotlight and suddenly finds himself unemployable. No team wants anything to do with him. So he ends up going and trying out for college teams with a fake face (literally a prosthesis) and a fake name of Chad Powers. He of course is really good and a team ends up giving him a shot on the team, only now he has to keep his true identity a huge secret which I suppose is easier to do in a sport where you wear helmets than most other sports would be.
The real name is Russ Holliday, and the way that he disgraced himself was simply to drop the ball (literally) just before entering the end zone in an important game. That's it!
I thought this was dumb in the first season, but i was able to look past it because the football action was pretty fun and seeing this guy kill it on the field was produced well. It can't be easy to simulate games and crowds and I felt as though they did a good job with this.
In season 2 they still do a good job with this but they had to introduce more character elements than just being good at football I guess and so they introduced some really unlikely love interests such as him having a thing for the daughter of the head coach, who is also a coach on the team he plays for.
DUMB!
She figures out his true identity but can't turn him in because it would destroy the team, her own reputation, and probably ruin her father's career at the same time. But she decides they can't see one another anymore outside of on the field and this I suppose is meant to create some sort of tension for the viewers.
I guess it does but the thing for me is that this show didn't really need a love angle and when they introduced it, it kind of took away from the real entertainment of the show which was the action on the field and the amazing plays that Chad would make and how the team, the coach, how everyone loved him for it. Now it is a love story that has some football going on in it.
The implausibility of nobody being able to tell that the guy has plastic face every time he is seen in public is quite silly, because there is no such thing as a false nose / mask sort of thing that is going to just stay on your face and not be noticed by anyone when you are working out really hard and presumably sweating like crazy.
Chad also has a silly falsetto voice that I think any rational human being would be able to work out is not his real voice rather rapidly as well but of course this never happens.
I get it, it is fiction and maybe I shouldn't take it so seriously, but seeing as how every episode is essentially the same thing where Chad nearly gets figured out and hides at just the exact moment that he needs to gets pretty old the 17th time it happens. I guess there just isn't really anywhere else for them to go with this though and when you consider that this entire show is based on a comedy short written by Eli Manning, I guess you can kind of understand why the whole show is kind of lacking in depth.
The 2nd season just dropped recently and has already concluded. I think I will skip ahead and watch the finale but after just 3 episodes in season 2 I think this is kind of painful to watch.
Should I watch it ?
I don't want to just tell everyone to not watch this just because I think it is stupid but if you are the kind of person that wants any sort of realism in a show that is intended to be a plausible scenario that ends up being touching, this is not it. Parts of it are in fact touching, but mostly it is a silly ride of completely insane situations out of touch with reality.
They like to talk about how this has over 90% rating on RT, but this is from 12 reviews and those reviews read like people were paid to write them. You can really trust any professional reviewers on RT or IMDB these days, they have all long since been compromised and are corporate slaves.
Give it an episode. See if you think it is as terrible as I do. I believe they were trying to cash in on some of the Ted Lasso success and unfortunately just kind of failed to do so.
The only legal place to stream this is with Amazon Prime or Hulu
