Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Party Of Five’ On Freeform, A Reboot Of The ‘90s Series With An Eye Towards America’s Immigration Policy

There are plenty of people who were obsessive fans of the mid-’90s series Party Of Five. The Salingers attempt to make it on their own without their parents was a consistent tearjerker and sentimental favorite. But we have to give the creators of the series credit: They decided that if they were going to reboot the show, they’d marry it to an extremely important issue going on in our current political environment. But does it work?

PARTY OF FIVE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A shot of downtown Los Angeles. In a rock club, we see two people making out. A long-haired dude comes down to tell “Milo” his band is on soon.

The Gist: “Milo” is Emilio Acosta (Brandon Larracuente), the oldest son of Javier and Gloria Acosta (Bruno Bichir, Fernanda Urrejola), and he’s more or less on his own, in a struggling rock band. He seems to want to distance himself from his roots a bit, given the fact that he stays in sporadic touch with the family lately and wants people to call him by a less Latin-sounding name.

The other Acosta kids are basically living their lives. There’s Rafa, who’s just a baby. Seventeen-year-old twins Lucia (Emily Tosta) and Beto (Niko Guardado) are forging their own paths in high school: Lucia as the “perfect” high-achieving student and Beto as the basketball star who’s struggling in almost all of his classes. Twelve-year-old Valentina (Elle Paris Legaspi) is so whip smart she’s doing ninth-grade-level math.

Javier and Gloria run a successful restaurant, and feel their employees are an extension of their family. When they get word that ICE is coming, they think it’s to round up the undocumented immigrants that work for them. They’re in for a shock when the ICE agents are there to bring the two of them in; they are also undocumented, having come over the border with a one-year-old Emilio 23 years ago. But, given the fact that they were business owners and upstanding members of the community, they didn’t think they’d be subject to deportation. “Times have changed,” the ICE officer tells them.

This leaves the Acosta children to fend for themselves. We flash to six weeks later, and we see they’re not doing well. Emilio is the only adult, so he’s the guardian to his four siblings, but his situation is tenuous because he’s DACA; his residential status could change at any time. Besides, he still wants to be a rock star and sleep with random women, one of whom he asks to babysit Rafa while he goes on the road. Beto is cutting school in order to try to run the restaurant, which is shedding employees as the payroll gets straightened out; he asks math genius Valentina to help him balance the books. And Lucia is now acting out; cursing at teachers and getting detention.

Emilio steps up and finds a top immigration attorney to take their case, but it doesn’t make any difference; Javier and Gloria lose their case and are ticketed to go back to Mexico. During the family’s emotional goodbye, Javier tells Emilio that he can take care of the family, including baby Rafa; Javier and Gloria reluctantly believe Rafa will have a better life with his siblings in the U.S. The whole family is understandably angry at how the country’s current immigration policies rip apart families like theirs, but Emilio is still reluctant to take on so much responsibility. But he doesn’t have any other choice; if he can’t handle it, his brothers and sisters will be broken up and sent into the foster care system.

Even as Emilio gets more serious, though, there are issues with having to parent your siblings, like when Lucia throws a party with her new rebellious friend, or when Emilio tries to lay down discipline in the house. It’s hard to assert authority when he used to be the guy who didn’t show up for family dinners. But after their parents are deported, they all realize that if they don’t buckle down, they could get split up.

Our Take: What we found interesting about this reboot of the mid-’90s cryfest Party of Five is that it was rebooted with a purpose, not just to reboot a ’90s favorite for a new generation. Original creators Amy Lippman and Christopher Keyser have joined with fellow EP Rodrigo Garcia to create something that, while not overly fresh from a story perspective, has a fresh perspective that’s tied up in current events but not in a way where it’s hammering you over the head with it.

Yes, this show is about families being separated and is a not-so-subtle comment on how unfair our country’s current immigration policies are. The Acostas’ deportation is going to hang over the entire series, because, even as their kids get more accustomed to being on their own, they’re still going to hold out hope that their parents will find their way back to Los Angeles.

Because the Salinger kids lost their parents to a drunk driver in the original, they just had memories. The Acostas will likely always have some hope, albeit fleeting. Also, Emilio’s DACA status — along with the residential status of other people in the Acostas’ world — will likely come up from time to time. One episode description, for instance, reveals that Lucia finds out a friend of hers hasn’t renewed his DACA status, leaving him open to deportation.

Otherwise, your enjoyment of this version of Party of Five will likely depend on how you felt about the first version. It’s the same sentimental cryfest that the ’90s version was, even with the immigration theme baked into it. The Acosta kids are more or less the same archetypes as the Salingers, and they’re going to face the same issues. The pilot had a lot of the beats that the original pilot had. The writing and performances are equal to that of the original, thanks to the participation of Lippman and Keyser. Will there be some updates to how the Acostas operate? Sure; social media wasn’t around in the ’90s, and no one could create a GoFundMe page, like Valentina did, to help her parents.

Sex and Skin: Nothing.

Parting Shot: As we see shots of each Acosta kid settling into the reality of their new lives, Emilio plays guitar and sings a melancholy song in his bedroom.

Sleeper Star: We were trying to figure out where we saw Niko Guardado before; IMDb reminded us that he plays Ruben Amaro, Jr. on The Goldbergs. We remember him always making the most of his one or two lines in each episode of that show that he was in, so we’re looking forward to see more of him here.

Most Pilot-y Line: We get that it was an scene to establish just what Emilio was up against in trying to be his siblings’ guardian, but we heard some variation of “you’re not my father/parents” like three times in two minutes. We get it.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Hopefully at some point the plots of this version of Party of Five will diverge from the original. But it’s pretty safe to say that if you liked the Salingers, you’ll like the Acostas.

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.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.

Stream Party Of Five On Hulu

Stream Party Of Five On Freeform