Rockford Peaches return to bat

AMAZON PRIME VIDEO – ON DEMAND – SERIES

In 1943, a short-lived women’s professional baseball league, created by the boss of the Chicago Cubs, allowed stadiums in the region to remain open, while millions of young Americans were called upon to join the ranks of the army. Sponsored by a candy magnate, the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League enjoyed a decade of popularity before its members were sent back to their stoves.

From this episode, the director Penny Marshall drew, in 1992, a feature film cut for success, An extraordinary team (A League of Their Own). The film is commercial, but endearing, especially thanks to Tom Hanks, unforgettable in the role of an alcoholic and filthy coach, to whom the filmmaker and his team had the good idea to oppose a handful of strong-mouthed actresses – Geena Davis , Madonna, Rosie O’Donnell, among others.

Thirty years after the film’s release, Amazon Prime Video is betting on adapting An extraordinary team in a serial format, the breadth of which allows room for stories and characters absent from the film, released at a time when inclusivity was not yet on the mainstream entertainment specifications. The approach is not new, it is radical here, since the sports comedy leaves room entirely for the story of feminist and lesbian emancipation.

Nerdy aesthetic

Exit, therefore, the cult anger trainer (“You don’t cry in baseball! »), the coach of the Rockford Peaches, the team that serves as the framework for the series, will make four episodes before being lazily exfiltrated by the writers. No regrets for Nick Offerman, who looked very bored. The Peaches find themselves left to their own devices, led to and fro by Carson Shaw (Abbi Jacobson, co-creator of the series), a player torn between her feelings for her husband who has gone to the front and her attraction to Greta (D’Arcy Carden), seductive and liberated bisexual.

This remake follows a program that sticks closely to the current era

The team’s chaperone is no longer the boring old spinster of the film, but a confidant with sound judgments; the maintenance teacher has also changed her speech, which teaches players that it is possible to combine speed and freedom. An added story arc features a young black pitcher, Maxine (Chanté Adams), who will spend eight episodes trying to fit into a sport that doesn’t want her… In a nutshell, this remake follows a program that sticks with close to the present time.

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