The Wonder Years

i caught an episode of The Wonder Years today that my mom taped for me due to hers and my curiosity (we'd heard of the title but never watched it before) and was emotionally blown away. it is a beautifully narrated and filmed series where Kevin Arnold, the youngest son of the Arnold family recounts memories/episodes from his childhood (aka Wonder Years).

the episode i watched was episode 13 (in season 2) titled 'Coda', where Arnold looks back at his childhood decision to give up playing the piano even though his teacher believed he had so much natural talent simply because he was afraid of failure. the lines were well-written, the acting so compelling (so much was said in between the lines through the eyes and body language of the actors) and i felt so overwhelmed at the end of the episode. i even think the episode got me right from the beginning in the opening lines:

When you're a little kid... you're a little bit of everything. Artist, scientist, athlete, scholar. Sometimes it seems like growing up is the process of giving those things up, one by one. I guess we all have one thing we regret giving up. One thing we really miss... that we gave up because we were too lazy... or we couldn't stick it out.

no wonder it (the episode) was nominated for an Emmy.

intrigued, i read up on the series and after going over the synopsis for the final episode, i felt a tinge of sadness, nostalgia even.

if only TV these days made you feel so engaged with the characters. but for now i'm definitely going to try and catch as many episodes as i can.

God bless reruns!