Thursday, June 01, 2006

The What?

Found this in a story in The Forward (pay attention at the end):



A Very Special Episode: 'Everwood' Series Finale Has the Rite Stuff

The fictional television town of Everwood, Colo., has no synagogue and no rabbi, not even a fictional one. Its leading citizen is played by the palpably WASPy Treat Williams, and its network — The WB — gave birth to "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Beauty and the Geek." So it might be the last place, even on television, that you would expect to find one of the more meaningful and tastefully portrayed bat mitzvahs in recent memory.

Delia's get-together, on the other hand, is just a pleasing backdrop, perfect for a touching musical montage as the entire town gathers on the parade grounds for the big event. (Bonus points for the director and props master: In the brief shot of Delia reading from the Torah, we see her accurately scanning the opening lines of Parshat Kedoshim — the portion she had been assigned several episodes earlier.) The camera pans across the congregation and catches her proud papa with misty eyes. Andy Brown may not realize it, but he's kvelling.

To be sure, this is a milchig affair, with a healthy serving of cheese. There are a few too many plays on the phrase "Today I am a woman," along with a fair share of eye-rollers, such as when one character gets a little tipsy ("Oh, goodness, you're drinking kosher wine?"),

or when Ephram asks his date to join the hora ("What did you call me?" she snaps back).

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