TV review by Megan Zickuhr

Trail Staff Writer

The CW has, during its short life, gained the reputation of being family centered. Many of the shows, though directed at hormonal, teenage girls, can be watched by the entire family, such as Gilmore Girls and Seventh Heaven. The network’s newest drama Runaway, however, is nothing but family-centered.
The show centers on a family that has run away, so to speak. Paul Rader (Donnie Wahlberg), his wife Lily (Leslie Hope), and their children Henry (Dustin Milligan), Hannah (Sarah Ramos), and Tommy (Nathan Gamble) were forced to flee from their home when Paul was framed for the murder of his assistant/girlfriend and the real killer threatened his family. Literally overnight they packed their bags and moved from Washington, D.C. to Bridgewater, Iowa to begin a new “life.” Lily cut her hair short and dyed it brown, Henry was forced to wear his hair in a different style and to dye it red, Hannah removed her glasses and straightened her hair, Tommy cut and dyed his dark hair blonde, while Paul also removed his glasses and cut his hair.
They brought nothing with them. They weren’t even allowed pictures because they all looked so different that it would appear suspicious. They made up a story about how they originally lived in New Orleans but had to evacuate and have been moving around since. They have all adopted fake names. Paul got a job as a cook at a local restaurant, Lily got a job as a desk clerk at the hospital, Hannah and Henry were both enrolled in 11th grade as twins even though Henry is a year older, and Tommy was enrolled in the third grade.
The first three episodes have been full of rocky places for the family. Henry deeply misses his girlfriend Kylie and even proceeded to take the family’s vehicle to try and go visit her. He keeps getting into trouble and was even arrested for trying to buy liquor with a fake ID, jeopardizing his entire family.
Hannah just wishes for normalcy and a life with her friends from home. She has fallen in with the popular crowd and in love with the boy next door, literally. However, one of her friends is dating him and in order to fit in with this girl and the rest of the in-crowd, she told her that she has already had sex and buys condoms for her. Tommy gives up winning the spelling bee so that he won’t have his picture in the paper.
Meanwhile, Lily is trying to take care of the family while Paul is doing his best to find out everything he can to prove his innocence.
Overall, this show has incredible family drama, full of all the angst and heartache that would be expected when a family, whose life is in danger, is dragged across the country and forced to live a life entirely different from the one they know.
A review of this show states that Runaway is, “…something more along the lines of 7th Heaven on the run.” However, this opinion is vastly outweighed by many fans of the new show that are hooked by the family drama. Hopefully this is a sign that the new series will continue to provide entertainment for the whole family.