I want to mention that I have only watched 10 episodes so far and the review is based on that. Chasing Life, as the Titel states, is centered around the concept of "how precious life is" more so than than "how irreversible death is". As far as I'm concerned the concept of this series generally works. Italia Ricci does a great job and makes the show work. The "side stories" and secondary characters have, for me, been a little underwhelming. Not because they where badly cast or don't know how to act, but in my opinion because they are not really flushed out in a way to make them appealing or likable, which i attribute to the writing.
The correlation between the movie and this TV series for me is hard to overlook. But a movie captures your attention for roughly 2 hours. This show needs you to make the decision to tune in every week to see how the story progresses. And here is my issue. there are generally only 2 ways that this can play out with the main story arc. Italia Ricci is either going to die or she is going to miraculously recover. To me neither are really appealing. Don't get me wrong, we are going to yo-yo all over the place but in the more general sense, if she dies you get to witness a lot of pain and tears. If she lives, the series which is centered around an illness would lose the main ingredient. Be that as it may, she will get worse and by tuning in you get to watch her get generally worse every week, you get to watch a character you like die. I'm not quite sure what to do next week, not because the show isn't good, but because "how irreversible death is" and we are in a downward spiral with no ground in sight...
The correlation between the movie and this TV series for me is hard to overlook. But a movie captures your attention for roughly 2 hours. This show needs you to make the decision to tune in every week to see how the story progresses. And here is my issue. there are generally only 2 ways that this can play out with the main story arc. Italia Ricci is either going to die or she is going to miraculously recover. To me neither are really appealing. Don't get me wrong, we are going to yo-yo all over the place but in the more general sense, if she dies you get to witness a lot of pain and tears. If she lives, the series which is centered around an illness would lose the main ingredient. Be that as it may, she will get worse and by tuning in you get to watch her get generally worse every week, you get to watch a character you like die. I'm not quite sure what to do next week, not because the show isn't good, but because "how irreversible death is" and we are in a downward spiral with no ground in sight...