●●●●○
Single mom Penelope (Justina Machado) faces the challenges of raising two teenagers and a grandmother once again in the third series of convivial sitcom One Day at a Time. The bright, busy Alvarez family apartment is back, complete with Cuban-American culture and a reliable supply of humour.
Despite critical acclaim, including a bevy of Critics’ Choice Awards and GLAAD Media Award nominations, an ostensible delay in the show’s renewal last year caused alarm among fans. As a result, there are traces of the temptation to throw everything and the kitchen sink at the first half of this series. Episode one is practically a Brooklyn Nine Nine crossover, with Stephanie Beatriz (B99’s tough, leather-jacketed detective Rosa Diaz) guesting as the undercut-wielding Pilar and Melissa Fumero (straight-laced 99 sergeant Amy Santiago) as cousin Estrellita. Gloria Estefan is also there, vamping it up with a mourning veil and ‘80s hair, as an estranged tía. It takes a lot to out-diva cast regular Rita Moreno, but Estefan gives it a good go as Mirtha, the younger sister of Moreno’s prima donna grandmother Lydia. It makes for a fun opener – even if it is set at a funeral.
Elsewhere, in what could constitute an effort to diffuse the obvious chemistry between Penelope and landlord-turned-honorary-Alvarez Schneider (Todd Grinnell), the former gets a new love interest while Schneider pursues quirky schoolteacher Avery (played by Grinnell’s real-life wife India de Beaufort). The series’ creator Gloria Calderon Kellett even gets in on the onscreen action as Penelope’s ex’s new fiancée.
In terms of continuity, there are lingering emotional beats for Elena (Colombian-born actress Isabella Gomez), whose relationship with her father Victor (James Martínez) is still rocky after he reacted poorly to her coming out and abandoned the father-daughter dance at her quinceanera in season one. Other shows might allow their early seasons to fade into the background, but for One Day at a Time, which is clearly cognizant of the power of the binge, it’s as if they happened only yesterday.
Elena’s social-justice-101 outlook ensures that this show fits right in with the crop of self-aware American sitcoms hitting their zenith at the moment: the conscientious cops of Brooklyn Nine Nine, the technicolour ethics lessons of The Good Place or the upper-class issue-of-the-week Black-ish. One Day at a Time is a sitcom which is filled to the brim with exploration of topics like PTSD, racial profiling, misogyny, protests, class and, particularly in the latter half of this series, addiction. An episode exploring how teenage boys get caught up in toxic masculinity is particularly notable in giving younger brother Alex (Marcel Ruiz) more to do. LGBTQ storylines often take centre stage, and this series even goes for the small details: it’s decided, for example, that Elena’s first love Syd, who identifies as non-binary, should be called her ‘significant other’ rather than the more explicitly gendered term ‘girlfriend’. Victor’s fiancée gets Alex on side by telling him he’s handsome, but impresses Elena by asking what her preferred pronouns are.
One Day at a Time may be a reboot of a show that launched in the ‘70s, but it feels like something entirely its own. You’d be hard pressed to find another remake quite like it.
