The CW Network has recently made a series that is essentially a serialized romantic comedy with No Tomorrow. Here is a review of the pilot episode of No Tomorrow, and where this show could be going.
No Tomorrow begins with a lady named Evie (Tori Anderson) who works as some kind of warehouse worker supervisor in Seattle. She has an intimidating boss named Diedre (Amy Pietz) as well as two co-workers named Kareema (Sarayu Blue) and Hank (Jonathan Langdon). She meets a man named Xavier (Joshua Sasse) at the farmer's market, but she is so nervous about it that she doesn't talk to him.
She comes home from work and sees a package from Xavier with his address, and it is way too coincidental that it was delivered there by mistake. Needless to say, Evie delivers the package, which is full of beer with the Carpe Diem label. That means "Seize the Day" for all those that haven't seen Dead Poet's Society, which will be the theme for this show.
Evie gets to know Xavier in his house, and there should be a lot of red flags going up. Xavier confesses that he doesn't work, and that "he wants to live while he can". That should be a major red flag! Then he says the MOST MAJOR RED FLAG OF ALL WHICH LITERALLY CAUSES SIRENS TO SOUND! He says that the world is ending. He has an actual date of 8 months and 12 days left, which is enough to keep this show going until the 2016-2017 TV season ends.
To Evie's credit, she does attempt to leave, but Xavier explains that at his former job, he learned that an asteroid is about to crash into earth. He has a 223-slide presentation about this, but then just shows her a view of the asteroid on the telescope. Xavier has apparently tried to tell people about it, like the government, NASA, and Oprah, and no one believes him, and he is been made a mockery on YouTube.
Xavier then tells Evie about his Apocalist, which is a list of things that he wants to do before he (and everyone else) dies. What is interesting is that Evie is on the list as "try to find hot rutabaga girl from the market". Yeah, that is ANOTHER RED FLAG!
We see that Evie still keeps in touch with her family, and we see her later with her mother, father, and sister. Evie's old boyfriend Timothy (Jesse Rath) shows up, and he is what Seinfeld would called a low-talker. He does come with subtitles which is...funny (not really), and wants to get married to Evie. He has a set-up with a kneepad for kneeling to propose, but Evie doesn't give him an answer right away, so Timothy awkwardly leaves. Suddenly this becomes an awkward romantic comedy.
Xavier then shows up again, and the audience sees that Xavier fell in love at first sight with Evie. This means that the whole package was a set-up. Evie then picks something from the apocalist and Xavier takes the third on there: which is take a joy ride with "Big Carl". The two of them go over dunes on a dune buggy, and even though Evie screams bloody murder, she wants to go again. Predictable!
She also kisses Xavier, and they have sex. Evie has to get to work, even though Xavier wants her to stay. He then wants to do something off of Evie's Apocalist. She can't think of anything at first, but says things like metal in the microwave and try a pogo stick (remember that for later). She eventually says sing in public. It is shown in an unnecessary flashback that she barfed when singing in a school play as a child.
Evie is then shown with Xavier at a bar, and he has her sing in public. What is interesting is how Xavier says that he will strip unless Evie sings better, and she does. Yeah, Xavier is pretty uninhibited, and it is rubbing off on Evie, for better or for worse.
Apparently, it is for worse. Xavier then sends a text message to Deidre on her smartphone saying that she has resigned from her boring warehouse job. What is funny is how Evie tries to throw a drink in Xavier's face, but the glass is empty, and then Hank finds a full glass and does it. It's probably the funniest moment on this show.
Evie then comes back to her boss, and tries to explain that it was a mistake. Evie is hired back, but Deidre wants Evie's help to hook up with Hank. It's weird. Seriously.
Evie comes home to find a pogo stick waiting for her. She tries to throw it away, but it bounces out of the dumpster. That's actually another seriously funny moment. Evie hurts herself on the pogo stick, and Xavier calls the hospital. Good thing that Xavier is watching her with his telescope...actually...that's kind of creepy.
While in the hospital, Evie discovers that she needs to have surgery for her heart, and she has to go under right away. It's an interesting twist, but not as good as This Is Us.
She wakes to see her family, and say that "she is out of the woods". Evie then goes to see Timothy and calls off the engagement, which wasn't really official in the first place. "Tell Timothy the Truth" is on her new personal apocalist. She also has "Tell Xavier the Truth", and she tells Xavier that she is going to keep her job.
This is actually a good ending to the pilot, as Evie isn't going to go full doomsday prep, or lack thereof. She is going to continue her life as is, and not do anything radical like Xavier. The two of them have an agreement: do one off her list, and then one on his list. It is a set up for a series that feels like My Name is Earl times two, and the ending of putting aluminum foil in a microwave.
Then it ends with an escaped convict at the door. Apparently, Xavier didn't want his friend to spend his final days on Earth behind bars.
The final verdict for No Tomorrow is a solid: "safe". The show seems to want to us to think about the "live every day like it is your last", but then immediately question the practicality of that. Evie is a good character who is attempting to live in the proper balance, which should really be the main story and not a set-up for a bad romantic comedy.
I mentioned earlier that the supposed apocalypse or meteor strike is set to take place 8 months from when the pilot takes place, which means the show can pretend it takes place in real-time and end at the end of the season. However, the apocalypse can't take place, or the show will have the worst tonal shift in history. So how in the world can a show like this last several seasons? The answer is that it really can't, but it can bank on an audience who will want to see if the world does end at the end of the season. Maybe that's all it needs to be.
