February Can’t Arrive Soon Enough

I won’t pass up a chance to champion Netflix’s family sit-com One Day at a Time because it’s far and away my favourite thing streaming. I’ll take that one step further. As a critic who watched over 200 movies in the past year, I can say without a doubt that no movie, TV series, or video game gives me more pleasure than my annual One Day at a Time winter binge.

If you’re like me and you get smacked with the winter blues by the time February rolls around, Netflix has a quick fix. I’m thrilled to announce that One Day at a Time’s 13-episode third season will be available to stream on February 8, 2019.

Check out the season three announcement video:

One Day at a Time is a reboot of the Norman Lear CBS sitcom that ran from 1975-1984. The show featured Bonnie Franklin as Ann Romano, a divorced mom raising two kids on her own. Netflix’s reboot tells the same story from but from a new perspective. The 2017 version sees the goddess Justina Machado play Penelope Alvarez, a Cuban-American mother raising her two kids in Echo Park, Los Angeles. She lives with her flamboyant mother Lydia (the legend Rita Moreno), and they’re often visited by their douchey but kind-hearted Canadian super, Schneider (Todd Grinnell).

I usually can’t stand more than a few minutes of multi-cam sitcoms. If the dad jokes and cornball performances don’t drive me out of the room, the laugh track does the trick. So, when people tried to put me onto the show, I wasn’t having it. But after hearing more than a few critics who I respect praise One Day at a Time, I had to give it a shot. I’ve never been happier about being wrong.

There isn’t a more empathetic look at the struggles of a working-class family on television. Take everything people wanted from Roseanne’s return to the airwaves, but make the series smarter, funnier, and inclusive, and you have One Day at a Time. Penelope, the family matriarch is a military veteran who struggles to raise her kids while secretly battling depression. That sounds heavy, but this show is anything but a downer. Most episodes tackle social issues ripped from today’s headlines: immigration, sexual identity, and religion, but in clever ways that will leave you howling.

Had this series taken place in 1994, every episode would be a “very special episode.” But showrunner Gloria Calderon Kellett deftly handles the sensitive material to produce a show that is sensitive to working-class struggles but also light on its feet. Nothing made me burst out with laughter or ugly cry like I did enduring the Alvarez family’s highs and lows. The Alvarez clan may own a broken-down car and live in a cramped apartment, but their lifestyle is aspirational. It’s impossible to watch the series and not pine for the warmth, kindness, and unconditional love shared between them. They may not always understand each other, but they do accept one another. What sounds more welcoming than that?

One Day at a Time’s third season is available to stream on Netflix on Friday, February 08, 2019