Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Hulu
New York has played a main character in a number of wonderful TV shows, from Sex and the City and Broad City to Seinfeld and Friends. In fact, rarely ever does a show set in New York ignore the sweeping skylines, the bumbling subways, and the ever-juicy gossip whispered in crowded, dimly lit bars—each an alluring draw to almost every NYC-based show. Still, we may have found the series that elects to completely ignore such a captivating setting: Up Here, a dismally boring musical romantic comedy that takes place in late 1990s New York.
Hulu has brought La La Land to the Big Apple with their new series, but instead of changing the main setting (Up Here could really take place in Los Angeles, for all we know), the show strips itself of all charm and creativity. Remember when we all had “City of Stars” and “Someone in the Crowd” stuck in our heads in late 2016? Good luck trying to remember a single tune from Up Here. Even the intro music, which opens each of the eight episodes in Season 1, is criminally forgettable.
Up Here starts with a bare bones, basic love story. Lindsay (Mae Whitman) and Miguel (Carlos Valdes) are two lonely strangers trying to survive in New York—and, hey, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. We begin with Lindsay’s side of the show. The tired housewife-to-be upends her life when she realizes her fiancé Ned (George Hampe) can’t offer her the excitement she wants. So, instead of pursuing a normal humdrum life in Vermont with two kids and TV dinners, Lindsay packs up everything she’s got and moves to New York City. She believes she just won a huge writing contest with a glorious cash prize; in fact, she won author of the week at a small bookstore that offers her a gift card and a job.