LUCKY 7

** (out of ****)

Lucky 7 has a lot on its plate, even for a pilot. It has to introduce us to seven different characters, each of which work at a gas station/auto shop. They have to keep the show suspenseful, even though we all know how this episode ends: the septet will win the lottery. If we haven’t seen it in the commercials, the flashforward that opens the show gives it away. We also have to be given a chance to make our predictions, and figure out how the money is going to make each character’s lives both better and worse. It’s a lot to jam into one hour, and that’s what makes Lucky 7 not just bad, but surprisingly boring.

There is one interesting part of Lucky 7: the guy who quit putting money into the lottery collection four months before the group hits it big. OF COURSE this character was going to be in the show, but here, as played by Luis Antonio Ramos, he’s going to go through some shit. If he had been one of the winners, he might be the most boring character, as he is the perfect employee/husband/father. He’s everyone’s rock. But now that he’s tasked with staying as strong as usual in the face of the unluckiest thing that’s ever happened to him, we could see some interesting storylines. He knows he’s the strong one, and if he breaks down and shows weakness, then he will have nothing left, along with not having the millions.

The rest is total fluffy garbage. There are the two broke brothers who get wrapped up in some crime before they win the lottery. (“some crime”has officially become as mandatory in television drama as “love interest” or “conflict”). There’s the fat lady whose husband is cheating on her. There’s the poor mom whose…nope, those are the only two things we know about her. This is not a case of needing to explore tropes or archetypes, taking them from their normal situation and giving them millions. This is about deciding that this premise needs to be on TV, and then grabbing the ol’ Character Cookie Cutter.

-Ryan Haley