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Each year, when Entertainment Weekly publishes its fall TV preview, I proceed with mixed feelings. On one hand, there are so many new shows that I’d like to check out. On the other hand, there just aren’t enough hours in a week to watch them all. So I end up taking time out for two or three shows a week—and I end up missing the rest.
Last fall, October Road was one of the shows I missed—one that I really wanted to watch, but I just never got the time. After watching the first season on DVD, though, I’ll be adding one more show to my weekly TV schedule.
October Road tells the story of successful author Nick Garrett (Bryan Greenberg), who left his home in Knights Ridge, Massachusetts to travel through Europe for six weeks after high school and never went back. He ended up in New York, writing the Great American Novel—which was really just a thinly-veiled story about his friends and family back home. Ten years after leaving Knights Ridge, Nick’s trying to write a follow-up novel, but he’s suffering from a serious case of writer’s block. So when he gets a call from the college in his hometown, asking him to lead a one-day lecture, he decides that it’s time to go home.
Back in Knights Ridge, Nick finds that things have changed. Owen (Brad William Henke) is married with kids. Phil (Jay Paulson) hasn’t left the house since 9/11. And Eddie (Geoff Stults), who had to give up his dream of starting a window business with his best friend, is less than thrilled to see him back in town. But the biggest surprise is Hannah (Laura Prepon), Nick’s girlfriend, who has a nine-year-old son, Sam (Slade Pearce), whom she claims isn’t Nick’s.
After a couple of days, Nick realizes that he has unfinished business in Knights Ridge—and he decides to stick around for a while to face the things he’s been running from for the last 10 years. It doesn’t take long, though, before he realizes that it’s not all that easy to go home again.
Though I had a feeling I’d find October Road interesting, I didn’t expect to fall in love with it as much as I did. But there’s just something so familiar about it. The small town of Knights Ridge just feels like home—and the people there feel like the people you find in any small town. The whole thing has a warm, welcoming, and even cozy feel to it. It’s a beautiful town filled with old houses with big front porches. There are tall, colorful trees and big, grassy lawns that are perfect for a game of soccer. The streets downtown are lined with family-owned shops, and everyone comes together in the friendly neighborhood bar. It’s the quaint, even romantic, kind of town that you wish you’d grown up in.
At the same time, Knights Ridge is the perfect setting for a coming-home-again story—because while Nick may be a hometown boy, he’s also the outsider. He’s the one who went away. And perhaps the story just hit home for me—since I grew up in a small town, too, and I was the one who went away.
But even with the beautiful setting and an interesting story, the show could still fall flat on its face without a cast of lovable characters. Fortunately, the characters on October Road are as familiar as the tree-lined streets of the show’s fictional small town. They’re all characters that you know. They’re the people you grew up with. They’re your friends and your family. And it doesn’t take long to fall in love with them—and to care about what happens to them.
The first season of this sweet, heartwarming series is only six episodes long—but by the time you finish all six, you’ll be completely caught up in the characters and their story, just like I am. Be warned, though, that once you pick up a copy of this two-disc DVD set, you’ll have no choice but to add one more show to your weekly TV schedule.
