(TV SERIES) Elle Season 1 - A Fun and Pleasing Light Comedy Series and Prequel to the Hugely Popular Legally Blonde

Few weeks ago, I read somewhere about this series that would be released on Prime Video which I thought sounded interesting. When it was finally made available two days ago, I thought it would have the usual one episode per week, but to my surprise, all episodes were already released on that day. So I decided to start watching yesterday and finished it today. Without further ado, here's more on the series.

Brief Story Line

Set in the 1990s, Elle Woods (Lexi Minetree - The Murdaugh Murders etc) the only daughter of successful plastic surgeon Wyatt Woods (Tom Everett Scott - Sisters of the Groom, The Summer I Turned Pretty TV series etc) and Eva (June Diane Raphael - Long Shot, Burning Love TV series etc) was having the best time of her life, living in Los Angeles and was loved by her high school friends. Unfortunately, due to some reasons, the whole family had to move outside LA and settled in Seattle.

Elle had to transfer to a high school there where she completely did not fit in and finding it very hard to make friends. She was not welcomed by the most popular girl in school named Kimberly (Chandler Kinney - Lethal Weapon TV series, Zombies 2 etc) and did not have great success to befriend the girl in her class named Liz (Gabrielle Policano - Babygirl etc) and the rebel Dustin (Zac Looker - A Kind of Spark TV series etc). Luckily she was still accepted by the kind hearted school staff Donna (Amy Pietz  - Caroline in the City TV series, Hooking Up etc) and had a crush on school jock Miles (Jacob Moskovitz - Y2K etc) who seemed to be interested in her too. Due to her difficulties, Elle decided to do something which could give her chance to return to LA.

So what would happen to Elle as she navigate her life in a totally different environment? You could find out in the first season of this series.

End of Brief Story Line

The reason why I was interested in this series was because it is prequel to the hugely popular Legally Blonde that my wife and I enjoyed. Although we would have loved to see another sequel (especially if it had one of our favorite actress Jennifer Coolidge in it), but since it does not seem likely to happen, a prequel sounded just as fun. Hence I did not hesitate to give this series a try after finishing latest season of a suspenseful and rather stressful horror show also on Prime Video. And I am glad that I did it as this series was indeed fun, very light and pleasing which was a welcome change after the tiring feeling earlier.

Despite being a teen series that had all the standard ingredients of teenage drama, mean girls, school events and so on, this one had a distinct difference where Elle showed early sign of her knack for justice which was enjoyable to see. It was a delight watching this because of how convincing Lexi Minetree portraying Elle. She really reminded me a lot of the Elle in the movies played by Reese Witherspoon (even my wife who just caught glimpse in one of the scenes thought she was looking at her). I read somewhere that Lexi sent a video tape of her portraying Elle which convinced the producers to give her the role. Oh btw, Reese did not appear in this series at all but she was credited as one of the Executive Producers.

In addition to the main cast above, the series also had some recurring cast such as Jessica Bielkin (You're Dead to Me etc) as Elle's best friend from LA Madison, Danielle Chand as Kimberly's best friend Shannon, Matt Oberg (Ugly Americans TV series etc) as school principal Anderson and to my surprise James Van Der Beek (Dawson's Creek TV series, Downsizing etc) as Dean Wilson, plus few others in minor roles. To be honest I did not recognized him when he first appeared in one of the episode until I saw his name shown under the words "In Loving Memory" before the closing credit. This sadly was his final appearance in a TV series. 

The whole season had standard 8 episodes with duration between 43-56 minutes. In the beginning, the series felt like it's just focusing on Elle's hardship on adjusting new life at school, but gradually it became a bit more than that. There was one episode which I thought was a little bit heavier as it dealt with a loss. I liked the sixth episode which referenced to the popular 80s movie (with the wonderful song from Simple Minds) and my most favorite the 7th episode. The ending to that episode to me felt better as the closing of the season, but after watching the 8th episode (which was good as well), I thought it's OK too. Good thing the series had been renewed for second season even before it aired so we knew there would be continuation to that cliffhanger end. Before I forgot, I read that critics were rather mixed in their views which was kind of odd to me, as I think Lexi's performance would at least deserve praise.

In case you are not aware, Elle Woods was the main character of 2001 comedy novel titled Legally Blonde by Amanda Brown with credit to Bridget Kerrigan. Aside from 2 movies, 1 spin-off (Legally Blondes) and a musical, there was also young adult novels of Elle's high school years written by Natalie Standiford though I think this series was not based on those books. Overall this is a fun, light hearted, pleasing series which explored the life of Elle Woods before she graduated high school, dealing with some challenging issues. The performance of Lexi Maxitree was also a joy to watch and the wonderfully done 90s setting was great as well. So if you want to brighten up your day, I think this series would give you such effect with its quality. But if you felt a mature, dark and heavy series is more of your forte, then this would not satisfy you. The choice is yours.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars