Party of Five

It’s a cruel world for TV shows right now, where a gem like Freeform’s reboot of the six-season, career-launching, Golden Globe-winning  family series Party of Five can get cancelled despite being #31 on Rotten Tomatoes’ Best TV Shows of 2020, with a 96% critics’ rating. Still, we have one lovely season for the whole family to enjoy.

The teen drama follows the five Acosta children – Emilio, Lucia, Beto, Valentina and baby Rafael – in the US as they navigate daily life and struggle to survive as a family after their parents are deported to Mexico.

The cast includes Brandon Larracuente (13 Reasons Why), Emily Tosta (Mayans M.C.), Niko Guardado (The Goldbergs), Elle Paris Legaspi (who plays the young Lyn in Vida), Bruno Bichir (Narcos) and Fernanda Urrejola (Narcos: Mexico).

Created by the original show’s producers, Humanitas Prize winners Christopher Keyser and Amy Lippman, the reboot has all the heart of the 1994 series, with a social conscience for today’s world. As NPR says, “At a time when the immigration debate still involves kids kept in cages, there is no better moment for America to see a series like this.”

Newsday calls it “The rare reboot with a purpose – and a heart,” while New York Magazine says, “The underlying message of this lovely series enables the audience to hold nostalgia and a bracing sense of reality in their heads and hearts all at once, and that’s a rare and special thing.”