Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Encore!’ On Disney+, A Kristen Bell-Produced Series Where High School Drama Casts Reunite To Put On A Show

In 2017, ABC aired the pilot for a new series called Encore! Hosted by Kristen Bell, it follows a group of former high school drama students who are reunited decades later to revive one of the musicals they mounted. And they only have five days to rehearse and prepare. Sounds like a pressure-filled world of drama, doesn’t it? Well, not quite; ABC didn’t pick the pilot up to series, but Disney decided to keep the format in play, and with the introduction of Disney+, the format was given new life. Read on for more…

ENCORE!: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Kristen Bell talks about the 1996 production of Annie by Santana High School in Santee, CA, and how the cast of that play are about to reunite to mount a new production of the musical.

The Gist: If anyone remembers the Encore! special ABC aired in 2017, the format of this new series is basically the same, albeit with a bit less of Bell (who is an executive producer). The show doesn’t reunite the entire cast of the musical, just the key players.

The idea of the show is that the drama is taking place off stage, not on. In the case of the 23-year reunion of Annie, we have a bunch of fortysomethings who either think of this as a lark or who try to recapture the magic. Annie, who ironically enough, played Annie in 1996, talks about how she had ambitions to act and actually moved to New York after high school. “But now my kids are my passion,” she says half-convincingly.

This time around, the group gets the assistance of professionals, including director Marcia Milgrom Dodge, who directed the Broadway revival of Ragtime, a professional choreographer, music director, and costume director. In the process of auditioning the group to figure out who gets which role, Dodge realizes that she’s going to need to do some work to get them to sing on key.

Jeremy, who played Daddy Warbucks in ’96, comes in on the second day. There’s the little issue that he used to date Jamie, who plays Mrs. Hannigan, back in high school. “He broke my heart,” she says. But there are no hard feelings, and the biggest deal is that Jeremy doesn’t want to shave his head, despite just having peach fuzz. It seems ridiculous until he talks about how he had cancer during his senior year of high school and was determined to do everything, despite the exhaustion and sickness the treatment caused. He didn’t want to be reminded of those days.

Then there’s Jarron. He was accidentally enrolled in drama class in high school and kind of kept to himself; he remembers how much he ended up liking the experience, though. The rest of the formerly tight-knit group gets to know him now, and he talks about how he basically grew up without parents and how his mother just decided to leave his family.

Everyone has five days to get this production on its feet. Somehow, it happens, and everyone’s families, along with Bell, witness a bumpy but overall successful revival.

Our Take: We remember how we reacted to the Encore! pilot that aired two years ago: Very intrigued by the premise and then completely bored with the results. Figuring that Bell and showrunner Alycia Rossiter would deal with those flaws, we looked forward to the new series. But they can’t work around the fact that, for the most part, time heals most wounds, and makes for pretty flat TV.

Listen, drama wasn’t our thing in high school, so we never got a sense of camaraderie and empowerment the experience of “putting on a show” engendered. And maybe we’re too used to reality programming where people are goaded by producers, other cast members or both into extreme reactions and arguments. But, like in the pilot, the gang from Santana High who got back together after 23 years generally liked being around each other and getting to know each other again. There was no pissiness over lost friendships or arguments over broken hearts or other high school drama.

That was high school; now that 23 years have gone by, everyone’s dealt with bigger things in their lives: Having families, trying to make ends meet, sickness, death, and more. So, like in the pilot, the biggest challenge is making sure the play goes off without a hitch after a ridiculously brief five days of preparation. But do we really care if the play goes off without a hitch? The stakes aren’t all that high; even if everyone flubs their lines or sings off-key, it’s still a fun experience for everyone involved and a good way to reunite. What kind of drama can you get out of that?

What Age Group Is This For?: We’d say this is for anyone age 8 and up who has a love of musical theater. Some light use of naughty language, but that’s about it.

Parting Shot: “I’m completely tired, so Annie has left the building,” says Annie after the show is over.

Sleeper Star: We might have taken drama in high school if we had Patty Di Puma as our teacher. Forthright but warm, demanding but loving, we were happy to see her nail the small part she was given in the play and not take over for the pros too much.

Most Pilot-y Line: We know that Bell is super, super, duper busy. But we thought her presence in the 2017 pilot, checking in on the group once or twice during rehearsals, motivated them to stick it out. The fact that, in this new series, she only appeared on opening night, was a bit perfunctory. But we get it; she couldn’t do Frozen II, The Good Place, Veronica Mars, Enterprise and La-Z-Boy ads, raise kids, have a healthy marriage to Dax Shepard, maintain a killer Instagram account and appear on camera on Encore!. Something had to give.

Our Call: STREAM IT, but only if you’re a big musical theater geek or did drama in high school or college. Otherwise, SKIP IT. Encore! will just not have enough drama for you to keep your eyes open.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, FastCompany.com, RollingStone.com, Billboard and elsewhere.er

Stream Encore! On Disney+