Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
After the refreshing comedy The Mayor, ABC gives us the hour-long dramedy Kevin (Probably) Saves the World. If you’re not sure what the show is about, its original name, The Gospel of Kevin, might give you a clue. Yes, there’s some God in this show, but it’s there in a relatively painless way. Read on to see if we’re interested in seeing Jason Ritter try to find the truly righteous.
A Guide to Our Rating System
Opening Shot: The opening of a pilot can set a mood for the entire show (think Six Feet Under); thus, we examine the first shot of each pilot.
The Gist: The “who, what, where, when, why?” of the pilot.
Our Take: What did we think? Are we desperate for more or desperate to get that hour back?
Sex and Skin: That’s all you care about anyway, right? We let you know how quickly the show gets down and dirty.
Parting Shot: Where does the pilot leave us? Hanging off a cliff, or running for the hills?
Sleeper Star: Basically, someone in the Kevin (Probably) Saves the World cast who is not the top-billed star who shows great promise.
Most Pilot-y Line: Pilots have a lot of work to do: world building, character establishing, and stakes raising. Sometimes that results in some pretty clunky dialogue.
Our Call: We’ll let you know if you should, ahem, Stream It or Skip It.
KEVIN (PROBABLY) SAVES THE WORLD
Opening Shot: Two different places around the world where people see a meteor fall to earth, then we see a car driving down a road in Taylor, Texas.
The Gist: In that car is Kevin Finn (Jason Ritter), who pulls into the driveway of his twin sister Amy (JoAnna Garcia Swisher). She has invited him to stay with her and her teenage daughter Reese (Chloe East) after a rough time in his life: we find out later that not only did he lose his job and girlfriend but he tried to kill himself with a handful of pills. Amy’s a recent widow, and she hopes her brother can help Reese out of the funk she’s been in since her father died.
Kevin and Reese see one of the meteors fall nearby and, while Amy is called away to brief the government on the meteors (she’s an engineering professor whose specialty is weaponry), they go to investigate. He touches the meteor and blacks out, but somehow manages to put the rock in his car and bring it back to the house. After a flash of light, he finds Yvette (Kimberly Hébert Gregory) making him a smoothie in the kitchen. She’s been sent to Earth by God to let him know that, out of the 36 truly righteous people who protect the world, he’s the last one, and he needs to find 35 other people to fill the vacancies.
Of course, Kevin, who doesn’t feel like he’s a particularly good person and doesn’t really believe in God, is incredulous. To complicate matters, he’s the only one who can see Yvette, and he is physically incapable of communicating his mission to anyone (when he tries to admit what’s going on to Amy, out come other secrets… even when he writes it on paper). But after an encounter as he tries to leave, he starts to understand what he needs to do: “Power up” his soul via good deeds in order to find those righteous folks.
Our Take: If you think you know Jason Ritter’s acting range from the various shows he’s been on in the past decade-plus, from The Class to Parenthood to Another Period, you’ll be surprised at what you see in Kevin. In the first episode, he needs to ride the line between being a guy scraping rock bottom, a guy who’s seen a vision and has to look to everyone else like he’s nuts, and then a guy who sees a little bit of hope even if he doesn’t completely understand what’s going on. And he conveys all of this in the pilot. He does an especially fine job with a monologue near the end of the episode that serves as a bit of exposition, but also eloquently conveys Kevin’s confusion at that very moment.
Everyone else in the cast is equally charming, including Garcia Swisher, who we’ve loved since her days on Reba; we find it hard to believe she’s at the point where she can realistically play the mother of a teenager, but then again Reba was a long time ago. East is fine as Reese, and will be a good counterpoint to Kevin’s mopiness. Also a good counterbalance is Gregory, last seen holding her own with Walton Goggins and Danny McBride in Vice Principals. A scene where Yvette litterally tries to slap some sense into Kevin was one that actually made us laugh out loud.
Sex and Skin: Aside from Kevin trying to hit on Kristin (India de Beaufort), an old high school flame now teaching Reese’s class, there’s not much in that department going on.
Parting Shot: We see Kevin from Reese’s perspective as he talks to Yvette. Of course, to Reese, it looks like he’s having a conversation with no one. We hear a voiceover from her as she writes and draws in her jounral that maybe he’s got a purpose, but he’s also definitely crazy.
Sleeper Star: As we said, East does a fine job, but we’re also hoping de Baufort gets more time as the beautiful but awkward teacher Kevin has been crushing on for over a decade.
Most Pilot-y Line: Not sure if we really need East’s voiceover, though it’s just used at the beginning and end of the pilot.
Our Call: Stream It. There is a danger that Kevin (Probably) Saves the World can slip into a very navel-gazing, maudlin direction. Or it can go the other way and get too preachy and become a modern version of Highway to Heaven. Showrunners Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas, who last ran the late, lamented Marvel’s Agent Carter, have their work cut out for them; if they keep the same light tone of the pilot, they should be fine. We’re looking forward to finding out who Kevin tries to save next.
(Click to see all of Decider’s complete Stream It or Skip It reviews)
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.
