The 1992 film “A League of Their Own” gets a small-screen adaptation of the Prime Video series of the same name.
The result is quite amusing and should win over nostalgic fans – but it’s not quite a home run.
Now streaming, “A League of Their Own,” has a similar premise to the film, which starred Tom Hanks, Geena Davis, Rosie O’Donnell, Madonna, and Jon Lovitz. Created by Will Graham (“Mozart in the Jungle”) and Abbi Jacobson (“Broad City”), who also star, the series is set in 1943 and follows the Rockford Peaches, the new All American Girls Professional Baseball League. I have a women’s team. , formed because World War II threatened the very existence of Major League Baseball with men fighting overseas.
The series begins with Carson Shaw (Jacobson) taking a train from Idaho to Chicago for a baseball tryout. Along the way, she meets and befriends fellow baseball hopefuls Greta (D’Arcy Cardon, “The Good Place”) and Joe (Melanie Fields).
There is no one-to-one translation from the film. Carson’s background is almost identical to that of Geena Davis’s character – a housewife-catcher with a husband who is locked in a war – but she has a different name, no sisters, and a plot exploring her sexual identity. (not in the movie). Nick Offerman has Tom Hanks as his coach, but here he’s Dove Porter, not Jimmy Dugan, and he’s not a freak alcoholic.
Many other plot points remain the same, such as dealing with skeptical fans and the media, uniforms that aren’t practical (“We can’t play in skirts!” they insist) and some conflict with each other, even when brought together. Gone by the game. Original star Rosie O’Donnell came on as the bartender.
“A League of Their Own” takes a deeper dive into race and LGBTQ+ issues than its big-screen predecessor. When two black women, pitcher Max Chapman (Chante Adams) and his best friend Clance Morgan (Gabemisola Icumello), show up at the tryout, they are specifically told to “go home” because of their race.
Meanwhile, Carson’s relationship with Greta soon turns flirty. These elements deepen the story and make the case for why a film like this could be adapted into a show – it has something new to say and blends into the film’s ingredients.
But these qualities alone, while welcome, cannot make it a winning game. Much of the pacing feels a particularly subdued innings of baseball, while Max’s story is largely alienated from the rest of the plot—which often feels like the show is pausing for time until the stories. don’t match.
Most of the dialogue, too, is disappointingly modern (Carson’s speech is juxtaposed with “likes” and “I mean” and phrases such as “super-excited!”). While in some shows anachronism operates as a deliberate choice (“Dickinson,” for example), here it comes across as willful deceit, such as in “A League of Their Own” unable to decide. Whether it wants to feel that it is rooted in the World War II era or rather will be a modern series that has some window-dressing of that era, but otherwise pulls it off.
For fans of the film, it’s worth tuning in. And for those looking for a drama about women playing baseball in the 1940s that doesn’t gloss over topics like race and sexuality, this is a pleasant enough watch. The ensemble cast is engaging, and the issues they grapple with seem topical. But it’s also jarring and uneven—with the feeling of a show clearing its throat and trying to fix its tone as it unfolds.