I didn’t manage to review Disney Channel’s new star-vehicle sitcom JONAS, but really, isn’t the best time to review a review-proof TV show after it airs?
In this new tween sitcom with music, Disney pop stars Kevin, Joe and Nick Jonas play teenagers Kevin, Joe and Nick Lucas. They have a different last name in the series, because this is acting. The name of the series is still JONAS, because the Lucases live in a loft-like high-tech house on Jonas Street somewhere in New Jersey. And the Jonases are still musicians, because, come on.
In the first episode, Kevin and Joe provide comic relief as most of the action focuses on Nick, who writes a song for a singer-songwriter girl he has a crush on—he always falls too hard! it’s so sweet!—but falls victim to a misunderstanding when she plays the song in a concert… for her boyfriend. Nick, we are told, is “the serious one,” a description which helps somewhat to paper over the fact that he can’t display much convincing emotion when not singing.
The singing is a high point—the Jonases actually record some pretty hook-y pop music, and each episode of the sitcom features a music video. (The first one was easily the funniest moment of the show, featuring Nick’s love interest as an angel, outfitted with a pair of giant wings with which she kept knocking things over during her fantasy sequence, including a table of wares belonging to the “Vase Club.” It’s like a Flight of the Conchords Jr. video.)
Beyond that, there isn’t much in the series so far that will surprise viewers of Disney Channel sitcoms: there’s a fantasy setup (the Lucases’ high-tech pad includes a built-in computer the guys use to pick clothes), wacky friends (an eccentric fashion-designer girl) and the standard looks-like-a-TV-set-high-school high-school-TV-set. But the Jonases do bring a lackadaisical charm to the whole thing, and while there is a subplot involving a stalkerish fan who wants to rip the boys’ clothes off, no one gets hot white foam sprayed all over them. Any Jonas fans—or their parents / older siblings / teachers—in Tuned Inland?
