Six Degrees

A review from Media Life:

Kismet and serendipity are fate at its sweetest. They are the notion that each day opens with the promise of meeting that one other person who stands to change one's life forever. Though appearing to be happenstance, it is grand destiny at work, proof that life has meaning, and that someone up there is watching over, a force of hope.
Anyone who's been to the movies in recent decades knows this force happens to be at its strongest, a magnetic field of sorts, over the island of Manhattan, that place where Hollywood tells us young love was more or less invented.

And there you have “Six Degrees,” the new drama premiering tonight at 10 on ABC. The series, which occupies a critical timeslot for the network, weaves together the lives and stories of a half dozen Manhattanites in an ongoing skein of vignettes that suggests the kind hand of destiny. The series is from "Lost's" J.J. Abrams.

This is storytelling at its most difficult. Through history but a few great writers have been able to pull it off. The first risk is confusion, a mess of personal stories that don't so much weave together as tangle in knots that cannot be undone.

And of course there will always be weaker stories among the stronger vignettes that risk losing readers or viewers. Too, there's the worry that the hand of destiny works too hard at its manipulations, reducing the whole confection to a heap of gimmicks from which sap runs in streams.

But with “Six Degrees,” Abrams largely pulls it off. From the first, when the characters are introduced, one after the other, the storytelling slides into a natural rhythm. In just the quickest snippets, we learn those key identifying elements of each character, and we are opened to the infectious aura of possibility, which is the unifying force of their separate lives. "Six Degrees'" one failing is that a few of the storylines are tired, bogging it down.

Also, no matter how well done, it's not going to yank in the NFL crowd. This is chick TV.

Carlos (Jay Hernandez), a scrappy public defender, is the narrator, and right off he lays out the show's raison d'tre as he ruminates about New York and the many lives that pass by one another each day. Then, in the first of the vignettes, he steps in to spring Mae (Erika Christensen, “Traffic”), a wild child, from a public nudity charge. He is smitten. She's gone.

As we learn, Mae has bigger problems. She's on the run from unknown people for unexplained reasons. Mae snags a job as a nanny for the daughter of Laura (Hope Davis), a recent widow.

Having met Laura, we now go with her for a manicure, and at the salon she strikes up a conversation with another customer, a big-time publicist named Whitney (Bridget Moynihan, “Coyote Ugly”). It turns out they both attended the same Sex Pistols concert over a decade ago. And so it goes.

To work, “Degrees” depends on making outrageous coincidences seem like the most natural thing in the world. That task is made easier by a strong cast, with actors known for their sharp supporting work, mostly in movies.

Davis and Campbell Scott, who plays Steven, a photographer and recovering addict, are both indie film faves who even starred together as an unhappy husband and wife in 2002’s “The Secret Lives of Dentists.” Both avoid the potential over-emoting pitfalls that come with portraying grieving widows and semi-reformed cokeheads.

In their one brief scene together--dialogue-free--Steven secretly snaps a photo of Laura crying on her stoop. It is as understated as it is touching.

Jay Hernandez, best known as the patient, love-struck boyfriend from “Crazy/Beautiful,” gives Carlos the same quiet, hopeful certainty he brought to that earlier role. Moynihan, the most likely breakout star, has done solid work for years. Finally given a meaty part, she takes advantage. Her Whitney’s hard-driving workaholic has a high-strung, almost brittle energy that she makes quirky rather than annoying.

Her manic attempts to prove or disprove her boyfriend’s infidelity, including creating a fake online dating profile, are both funny and heartbreaking.

“Degrees” is strongest when focusing on drama of the heart: Whitney’s doubts, Laura’s struggle to get over her husband’s death or Carlos’ optimistic efforts to find, then woo Mae.

The writers falter a bit when the attention turns to Steven’s coke issues or limo driver Damien’s (Dorian Missick) gambling debts.

As a female-skewing show leading out of a kindred “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Degrees" would do better to skip the addiction plotlines for the romantic. It will be tugging to hold "Grey" viewers from switching over to “ER,” a show with a long history of recovery sagas.

"Degrees'” open-ended structure offers a key advantage: weak storylines can snipped off in a jiffy as the bigger story moves apace. People disappear in Manhattan all the time.