Party of Five (2020)

There are a lot of shows getting reboots that maybe shouldn’t (Roswell, really?). But this is a timely and smart retelling of a unique story about children coming of age in a modern, mixed-up world without their parents to rely on. While watching I kept asking myself, as I imagine many viewers will as well — what if this were my family?

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.

The new version of Party of Five, which premieres on Freeform on Wednesday night, is a timely reinterpretation of the original, a remix with meaning. ... Sadder and more wrenching then the original. Unlike the Salingers, the Acostas are not awfully, simply without their parents. They are in an excruciating limbo.

With executive producer Rodrigo Garcia (In Treatment), creators Christopher Keyser and Amy Lippman ingeniously reimagine their story as a portrait of a loving family torn apart by political forces. ... Because characters sometimes sound like mouthpieces, the addition of some standard teen melodrama can make for slightly ponderous scripts. Yet the show ultimately appeals to our empathy more than our political allegiances.

This "Party" does what the original did well because it knows all of this. Feelings are universal but circumstances are not. ... The rare reboot with a purpose — and a heart.

The immigration story doesn't go away, but the family's adjustments make room for love triangles, various teenage rebellions and financial drama aplenty. The more conventional and soapier parts of the series are a release valve, even if they also cause those arcs to feel much less adventurous than the material mined in Freeform shows like Switched at Birth or The Fosters.

The circumstances surrounding the kids are often far more interesting than the characters.