“The Village” offers a quaint take on the ensemble drama series.
Unlike many of its contemporaries, it’s not overly weepy and melodramatic (“This Is Us,” “A Million Little Things”) or constructed around horrific, dystopian misery (“The Handmaid’s Tale,” “The Walking Dead”). While “The Village” does, at times, skirt thisclose to preachiness, it never quite crosses that annoying line in checking many topical boxes: ICE, teenage pregnancy, illness, the politics of war and even Sept. 11.
It’s an old-fashioned, feel-good hour of television a la its NBC hospital-drama stablemate, “New Amsterdam.” And it’s got two added bonuses — gritty, contextual New York City locations (it’s filmed here) and co-star Dominic Chianese, so memorable as Uncle Junior in “The Sopranos.” I’ll watch the 88-year-old Chianese in anything, and he’s great here, mixing humor, pathos and wisdom with such a natural touch that it’s a joy to watch.
He plays Lorenzo “Enzo” Napolitano, one of the many characters associated directly and laterally with The Village, a Brooklyn apartment building where “everyone is family” and all the residents are interconnected in one way or another. The building includes Enzo’s grandson, Gabe (Daren Kagasoff), a law student who dotes on his mischievous “Pops”; single mother Sarah (Michaela McManus) and her rebellious teenage daughter, Katie (Grace Van Dien); building super Ron (Frankie Faison) and his wife, social worker Patricia (Lorraine Toussaint); Ava (Moran Atias), who’s arrested by ICE in the series opener; and Nick (Warren Christie), a vet who lost a leg in an IED blast. With an assist from Sarah, Nick moves into The Village after leaving the hospital to settle into his new life and is reunited with Jedi, the dog who saved his life overseas.
There’s a lot more that happens in the series’ first two episodes, including one neat reveal (no spoilers!). Chianese gets the lion’s share of the best lines. “I look like somebody beat me with a baseball bat and sewed me into a costume I can’t take off,” he says about his physical appearance — but, make no mistake, Enzo is a tough old bird and will factor heavily into the ongoing plotline without getting too mawkishly sentimental. The other cast members are very good, too, particularly McManus and Van Dien. Their relationship, loving yet fraught with tension, is very realistic, and kudos to the show’s casting department for finding two actresses who really could be a mother and her daughter.
Some of the plot’s dramatic elements tie together a little too neatly but this is TV, after all, and “The Village” will transport you to a “Can’t we all just get along?” place you wished you lived in — with loving neighbors (who are never annoying or nasty) and a world in which a lot can go wrong, and does, yet offers hope and a chance for redemption.
It’s the type of “Village” that welcomes you with open arms — and should score lots of points with viewers of every stripe.
