Highly Overrated But Still Good

An absolute waste of money

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Various friends and neighbors attend a party where people contribute a dollar to play the lottery. Sean Mathers works at a flower shop and hiding as a fugitive. He's invited by his boss Beth Walsh and her husband Cameron who are planning to move away for his new job. Peter and Nina Schaefer seems to have a happy family but she's cheating with Cameron who was her ex. Maggie is an overworked struggling nurse. Teen Damien adds a buck at the convenient store. Nina plays Cameron's birth date which ends up winning $386 million. Addie fights with her husband who she's in the process of divorcing. They have teen daughter Frankie. Struggling single mom Kimberly George delivered a pizza and added the extra dollar. Sean does a deal with lawyer Zoe Reida for her to claim the winnings and split the money. She fears his fake identity, a murder, and creepy Jeremy from his past. Damien is underage and can't collect for another ten months. He decides to marry his father's annoying friend's mail-order Russian bride Galina and move away from his disapproving father. Former student Elisa claims to have a baby with Cameron. Sunny van Hattem claims Kimberly's share threatening to tie up everybody's payout. Zoe goes missing and her sister Tally searches for her.There are way too many characters and everybody has a problem. There is too much going on. It's bad soap and quite frankly whiny. Some of the rich people problems come off as annoying. Some of them are doing down right stupid stuff which gets really frustrating. What's with the baby kidnapping? With so many story lines, it becomes a waste of time waiting to follow the particular characters that one finds appealing. It gets tiresome and got canceled after 13 episodes.

I loved this show.I watched it from the first airing to the end.Even video taped it.I would love to see this show air again with more story lines.The best cast ever.It was the most watchable show on my block that summer,every house on the blocked watched it.I remember having our block meetings,boy we could even get started without discussing Windfall.We loved it,and the cast.Is there anyway that this show could be brought back for a second,third and maybe even forth season.We would love it.We would love everyone responsible this if you could make the possible. Sincerely,Windswept by Windfall,Overbrook,Pa.Community

Network: NBC; Genre: Drama; Content Rating: TV-PG (for some language and suggested sex); Perspective: Contemporary (star range: 1 - 4);Seasons Reviewed: Complete Series (1 season) At a Lottery Party, a group of 20 friends of all different ages and ethnicities - including Lana Parrilla ("Third Watch"), Jason Gedrick ("Boomtown"), Sarah Wynter ("24" hottie with the angry eyes) and Luke Perry - each put a dollar into a pot and, overnight, the numbers hit and they all become millionaires. At first it is great. Who wouldn't want to be a father able to give his kid a carnival in the backyard for his birthday or be able to hop on a first class jet and take an afternoon shopping spree in Paris.But this is a dysfunctional group and there are a few problems from the outset all of which get heightened by the fame and fortune that comes from the lottery. The most compelling story involves Jon Foster ("Life As We Know It"), as a high schooler who cooks up a scheme to emancipate from his ruthless father by marrying a Russian mail-order bride. D.J. Cotrona ("Skin", not "Wonderfalls" but they look alike) plays an ex-con, unable to claim the money on his own for fear of being caught by the feds and tracked down by an old nemesis. He enlists a lawyer, Zoe (Sarah Morris) for help claiming it.Created Laurie McCarthy and Gwendolyn Parker, "Windfall" has such a potentially fun concept it can instantly appeal to everyone. Who hasn't at one time stated that all their problems could be solved by winning the lottery? But soon what began as a fun and entertaining wish fulfillment series takes a sharp left turn into full-on soap opera mode. And not fun sudsy soap stuff, but dark, tiring, endlessly melodramatic stuff.While every other story slowly looses steam the more complicate and convoluted it becomes, it is single-handedly with the Sean/Zoe storyline where the show jumps the shark. The unexpected turn it takes is pretty damn horrifying and effectively jars it out of our fantasy land. The promise that is made in the light-hearted Pilot is not fulfilled; "Windfall" makes for a terrible wish-fulfillment show.Am I wrong to ask that this show be a light-weight wish-fulfillment series? Normally, this is where I would tell someone to meet the show on its level and not demand it be what you want. But we've been down the relationship melodrama road a thousand times before. A married women is secretly in love with another married man. A son angry with his overbearing father runs away and gets in over his head. It's hard to shake the "90210" feel of the show, which ironically comes the least from the appearance of Luke Perry. Perry's character seems to be the only one who enjoys the money and is one of the show's bright spots. The guy is unusually laid back even when learning his wife is in love with another man.What "Windfall" doesn't seem to get is that the wish fulfillment angle is the most original option to take this story. Maybe "Windfall" as a comedy about people misusing and abusing of money and fame (wait, that was pretty much "Arrested Development"). Or maybe just "Windfall" as a more intelligent drama. The age-old hypothetical of choosing between love and money is boiling under the surface here - and the show is unwilling or unable to dig deep to get to it.Why? Might I propose the reason is to fill a TV mandate that demonizes money and fortune in order to play up the importance of the concept of love. Watch any scripted show at any time and more than likely you will see a depiction that money is inherently the root of all evil and love is inherently the source of all happiness. The fact that the money only allows these characters the opportunity to make all their selfish desires come true seems lost on them and muted by the show as one-by-one they seek to solve their problems by giving the money back.Really anything would be better than the slow death-crawl that befalls this series. The show appears bored with itself. The cast appears to all but detest each other. The show is depressing. I'm all for an intelligent, insightful show about the heavy price of fame and fortune, but this will just make you want to chase a bottle of Xanax with a bottle of Jack. "Windfall" just may have sacrificed any chance of pure entertainment to spend an entire series lecturing to us.* ½ / 4

this is great. i love watching shows with a sort of characters to focus on. an assortment of characters always leaves room for death and additional characters. things could get very interesting. from one writer to another, good job. i love the way all of the characters are linked by the common thread, money. i saw great writing and that was only in one episode. i don't watch much TV. this show will become 1 of the 4 network TV shows that i watch. please choose a time slot and stick with it. if i have to search for a show i usually end up missing it. after i do without my weekly dosage of a particular show, i usually learn how to do without.i missed it last week. hopefully it won't happen again.