A League of Their Own TV Review

Plot: A League of Their Own evokes the joyful spirit of Penny Marshall’s beloved classic while widening the lens to tell the story of an entire generation of women who dreamed of playing professional baseball, both in and outside of the AAGPBL. The show follows Carson (Abbi Jacobson) and Max (Chanté Adams) and a new ensemble of sharp and hilarious characters as they carve their paths toward the field, along the way finding their teams and themselves.

Review: The 1992 movie A League of Their Own is a modern classic that balances a period of history that is often overlooked with a stellar cast who knock the comedy and drama out of the park along with making it a solid sports movie. While the film was a fictionalized telling of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, the Penny Marshall-directed movie has become a beloved inspiration for people of all ages. Still, the stories told in the feature film only hint at the hundreds of unique tales that came out of that era of sports. The new Prime Video take on A League of Their Own serves as another glimpse of that period in history. Still focused on the Rockford Peaches, this new tale takes a different angle in telling the story of the players on and off the field while still delivering the same inspiration as the original A League of Their Own.

Opening with tryouts for the AAGPBL in Chicago, A League of Their Own quickly introduces us to main character Carson Shaw (Abbi Jacobson), a housewife who yearns to play baseball. She soon meets Greta Gil (D’Arcy Carden), a carefree spirit who is also a sultry smartass. As the two bond and become friends, we quickly find the core Peaches squad come together under the tutelage of veteran pitcher Casey “Dove” Porter (Nick Offerman). The season then progresses with the focus on the team facing the challenges of being perceived as less competent than their male counterparts as well as internal strife as the team-mates jockey for the attention of Porter. There is also a significant amount of time dedicated to romantic subplots for various characters.

The majority of the episodes are focused on Abbi Jacobson and D’Arcy Carden whose characters are the most well-developed of any in the cast. But, a major amount of each episode is also focused on a separate story focusing on Max Chapman (Chante Adams) who is rejected from the tryouts because she is Black. As the season progresses, Max fights for any chance to play ball, even if it means participating in a company league where she is the only female player. The 1992 film only teased the story of Black female ballplayers in a single, short scene, but this series gives their tale a lot more due. Over the eight episodes made available for this review, Max and Carson cross paths several times with their stories beginning to come together as the season comes to a close.

With a significantly longer running time at its disposal, A League of Their Own is able to dive much further into the day-to-day lives of the players, both as athletes and in regards to what they left behind at home. Where the film spent a great deal of time on the field as a triumphant sports tale, the series spends much less time showing practice and game sequences than I expected. The series is also nowhere near as family-friendly as the movie which had some mild profanity and sexual content. This series is definitely aimed at a more mature audience with the type of language you would expect coming from ball players. It also is far less focused on being funny than the film. The movie is one of my favorite flicks to quote on a regular basis, but the series doesn’t have nearly as many memorable quips or comments as Penny Marshall’s movie.

Created by Abbi Jacobson (Broad City) and Will Graham (Mozart in the Jungle), A League of Their Own is a vastly different take on the story of women’s baseball. They start out similarly, but this story is far less focused on treating the league as a novelty or oddity. Instead, there is a concerted focus on race and sexuality, and the idea of what a woman should behave like drives a lot of the narrative. There are multiple same-sex relationships that crop up over the course of this show which does fit in with the historical context of the league. The sexuality side of the story is handled a bit more adeptly than the racial divide which at times feels a little heavy-handed. As good as the cast is, especially D’Arcy Carden and Chante Adams, the overall ensemble here does a fantastic job even if many of them are not as developed as characters as they could have been.

While it was going to be virtually impossible to deliver a series that worked as well as the feature film, Prime Video’s A League of Their Own is a good story with a great cast of characters. Abbi Jacobson, D’Arcy Caden, and Chante Adams lead a much more layered look at the women who played professional baseball during the Second World War. Because this story is as much about a team learning to play together as it is about people from different walks of life learning to live in a changing America, A League of Their Own feels more realistic and more genuine than the 1992 movie did. While the AAGPBL existed for two decades, there were at least five solid years where its popularity peaked and I hope this series finds a large enough audience that Jacobson and Graham get to explore more of those untold stories.

A League of Their Own premieres on August 12th on Prime Video.

A League of Their Own

GOOD

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