4 out of 5

Created by: Martha Williamson

covers pilot movie and season 1

What’s that you say?  You’d never sully your television viewing with a sappy Hallmark experience?  Are you saying this because you have a penis?  It’s okay if you do.  I mean, penises are so last year, but I get it, you’re retro.  But questionable appendages aside, it’s time to move past your Hallmark limitations and at least give something like ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered’ a try… even though it was created by the same effing person who created ‘Touched By an Angel.’  Uh, and yes, it’s still sappy, but it’s a reminder that good ideas and good writers can find success in any genre.  So if you can at least tolerate some goofy smiles and hide-those-tears moments in some of your media viewing (and most series / flicks have something like that at some point), ‘Signed’ has some fun characters, a fun premise, and a light detectivery flair to it to keep you entertained for 40 or so minutes.

Prim and proper Oliver O’Toole leads the ‘lost letter department’ of the U.S. Post Office, which handles those letters that have fallen through the system for whatever reason, only to wind up at the Office, awaiting delivery.  O’Toole – with photographic memory Rita, nerdy fact hoarder Norman, and newly arrived ‘tech consultant’ Shane (the ‘normal’ one out of the group, who’s to serve as our narrative bridge into this world) – must then use in and out-of-office research to figure out who these letters are going to and to deliver them.  Each episode takes us on one of these hunts, which inevitably involve emotional and complex stories that make it more than just a simple delivery.  Some of the topics are what you would assume of Hallmark fare, celebrating life and love and, y’know, patriotism, but some episodes are willing to get a bit darker, picking at sores in people’s pasts regarding mistakes and regrets.

The whole cast is pretty enjoyable, filling their 1-dimensional quirks with a fuller sense of identity and character, and the show keeps things from getting too formulaic by switching up the office supervisors for various guest stars (and comedic interjections) or having some fun with the battle between Shane’s reliance on computers (though don’t look to the show for any sense of technical depth, of course) and Norman’s fact-finding through books.  O’Toole is also given a pretty sweet tragic past, but that links to the show’s weakest link: the force-fed romance.  Shane has to be a romantic interest for O’Toole, and Rita has the hots for Norman.  And since we live in a world where second seasons are never guarantees, these plotlines are pushed forward rather quickly, which just means that if there are more episodes, they’ll probably have to backpedal.

I started watching the show because of lead Eric Mabius, who plays Oliver O’Toole.  And though the theme song is super cheese and families get reunited and further frequent happy shit, the show was constantly on the top of my list to watch each week.  It’s true to what it intends to be, and, allowing for some Hallmark / genre norms, ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered’ shines with the kind of confidence that would be welcome in any genre.