Jack & Bobby is an American drama television series created by Greg Berlanti, Vanessa Taylor, Steven A. Cohen, and Brad Meltzer. It aired on The WB from September 12, 2004, to May 11, 2005. The series' title is a reference to real-life political brothers John and Robert Kennedy.

Premise

The series follows the lives of fifteen-year-old Jack and thirteen-year-old Bobby McCallister, two teen boys being raised by their strong-willed mother Grace in a small Missouri college town. Grace is a history professor at the local university and has an unconventional approach to parenting, which includes discouraging her sons from watching TV. Elder brother Jack is popular and a star on the track team, while Bobby is nerdy and asthmatic. Each episode is interspersed with flash-forwards from a documentary about the life of President McCallister, who would take office in the 2040s. The documentary clips feature interviews with members of the McCallister administration reflecting on the president's years in office and how his formative experiences shaped his later life and how he governed. It is not revealed which of the McCallister brothers would later become president until the end of the pilot episode.

Cast and characters

Main cast

  • Christine Lahti as Professor Grace McCallister
  • Matt Long as Jack McCallister
  • Logan Lerman as Robert "Bobby" McCallister, future President of the United States (2041–2049)
  • Tim Robbins voiced the future President McCallister in the series finale
  • Jessica Paré as Courtney Benedict, the future First Lady of the United States
  • Brenda Wehle portrays the future Courtney McCallister in a recurring role
  • Edwin Hodge as Marcus Ride, the future senior counsel of President McCallister
  • Ron Canada portrays the future Marcus Ride in a recurring role
  • John Slattery as Peter Benedict, the new college president and Courtney's widowed father
  • Norman Lear guest starred as the future Peter Benedict
  • Keri Lynn Pratt as Missy Belknap (episodes 2–20)
  • Bradley Cooper as Tom Wexler Graham (episodes 4–17)

Recurring cast

  • Dean Collins as Warren Feide, Bobby's best friend
  • Harry Groener guest starred as an adult Warren Feide in one episode
  • Mike Erwin as Nate Edmonds, Courtney's former boyfriend
  • Cam Gigandet as Randy Bongard, Missy's on-and-off boyfriend
  • Kyle Gallner as BJ Bongaro, Bobby's "frenemy"
  • Kate Mara as Katie Tokoleta, Jack's former girlfriend
  • John Heard as Dennis Morgenthal
  • Ed Begley, Jr. as Reverend Belknap, Missy's father
  • Jeanette Brox as Dex Truggman, Bobby's former girlfriend

Development

The idea for the series was conceived by novelist Brad Meltzer and Steve Cohen, the latter who served as deputy communications director in Hillary Clinton's office during her husband's tenure as president. In 2002, Meltzer and Cohen pitched their idea to Thomas Schlamme, then an executive producer on The West Wing. The WB agreed to produce the series and Schlamme brought on Dawson's Creek alum Greg Berlanti as well as Berlanti's Everwood colleague Vanessa Taylor to write the pilot episode.

Episodes

Reception

Critical reception

The show was acclaimed by multiple critics and outlets. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the show has a rating of 88% based on 16 critical reviews. Rob Owen of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote Jack & Bobby is "undoubtedly the most grown-up series" aired by the youth-skewing WB network and called it "an absorbing drama with hints of the idealism found in early seasons of The West Wing.'"

Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times wrote the show "could have been just another coming-of-age tale of teenagers growing up in a small town with an overbearing single mother," but its historical framing sets it apart. She wrote, "'<nowiki/>Jack & Bobby<nowiki/>' is unusual in many ways, and one is that unlike so many modern shows it is cynical about television but deeply romantic about politics and public service...moments of misty patriotic yearning are leavened with sharp dialogue and self-mocking asides, including some at the expense of other WB series. (On tonight's episode, Jack sarcastically tells his mother that their family is 'straight out of 7th Heaven.)"

Stanley praised Christine Lahti's performance in particular, writing "Ms. Lahti is an actress who works the underlayers of each role and resists the pull of easy sentiment. Grace is a complicated, strong woman who is sympathetic without being quite likable, and that makes both her bond with Bobby (he helps her match her outfits) and her tensely hostile relationship with Jack plausible." In The New Yorker, Nancy Franklin likened the show to a mix between The Wonder Years and The West Wing, concluding it "is most emotionally effective when the lines that are drawn between Bobby's boyhood and his adulthood meander through unexpected oxbows."

James Poniewozik of Time found the documentary flash-forwards to be distracting, but said it's "a smart, well-written show that constantly subverts our expectations, and it takes a rare demographic risk."

A plot line about the parentage of Jack and Bobby, in which the mother had hid the fact that the boy's father was "just a Mexican dishwasher", received criticism from the Los Angeles Times and was described by The New Yorker as implausibly convenient.

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|Casting Society of America

|Outstanding Achievement in Dramatic Pilot Casting

|Patrick J. Rush for "Pilot"

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|GLAAD Media Awards

|Outstanding Individual Episode (In a Series Without a Regular Gay Character)

|Episode: "The Lost Boys"

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|People's Choice Awards

|Favorite New Television Drama

|Jack & Bobby

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|Golden Globe Awards

|Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series — Drama

| rowspan="2" |Christine Lahti

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|Screen Actors Guild Awards

|Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series

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|Young Artist Awards

|Best Performance in a TV Series (Comedy or Drama) - Leading Young Actor

|Logan Lerman

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Cancelation

Despite critical acclaim and a strong start, the show was not a successful ratings draw for the network, averaging only 2.7 million weekly viewers, though the ratings did not improve as it was then competing against The West Wing, The Bachelor, and American Idol.

To date, physical home media for the series has not been released, but it has intermittently been made available for digital purchase on Amazon and iTunes.

See also

  • Lists of fictional presidents of the United States
  • Diary of a Future President

Notes

References

  • Jack & Bobby official site by co-creator Brad Meltzer