At first, it seemed that the producers should have ended the fledgling series right after Episode 1, for the episode completes what should have been a movie. Episode 2 has proved instead that Episodes 1 and 2 comprise a complete movie. How can the quality of the first two episodes be sustained in a series?
Astonishingly, Season 1 has turned out to be consistent in its quality. It was as if a new genre was born, to replace what used to be the soap operas of the days of yore. It was as if some dictator we did not have we had rounded up the best writers, the best directors, and the best actors in the land and commanded them to produce the best soap opera that the world had hitherto seen. And it was as if they all succeeded marvellously.
The series was largely consistent through Seasons 1–4. Then adult supervision seems to have deserted the creative team for much of the early part of Season 5. All the while, the actors and the actresses did their best interpreting the orders from what remained from the creative team. Perhaps disciplined by the audience reception, Season 6 of the series resigned to its destiny of being a part of a great movie, a TV drama, rather than a running commentary on temporarily locked-down writers' tweeter 2020 feeds.
All in all, This is Us is one of the best TV series ever made. What makes it special is the unending creativity of its writers, reflected both in the plot twists and in the clever, cliché-defiant dialogue; and the perfect casting and---perhaps, paradoxically---sincere acting. (The strangest character is Philip. It appears to have been written by someone who had never met a Briton before. It even appears to be portrayed by someone who appears to have never met a Briton.) The creators had much to say, and they said it all. They said what they wanted to say, not what they thought others wanted them to hear. They had courage, and so did the studios who supported them at every step of the way.
