I’m always going to fall for a show that’s about chasing your dreams in New York City, and that’s precisely what Bess in Little Voice is doing.
Little Voice isn’t just a show about chasing your dreams. It’s a show about finding yourself and your voice. In some ways, Bess (Brittany O’Grady) is very secure in who she is, and in others, she doesn’t have a clue. The first episode is called “I don’t know,” and it shows how lost she feels with her music. She loves writing music, but after one bad performance, she doesn’t want to sing her songs again. Now, we get to watch her find her way back and follow her dreams.
The first episode is centered around Bess and her life. She has a lot of random jobs that you see through the course of the episode. It’s not easy making a living in NYC, and the montage showcases that.
We also meet her brother Louis (Kevin Valdez), who is narrow diverse and is living away from his family for the first time. He’s also trying to find himself. He’s so funny and cares deeply about his sister. They both are there for each other no matter what.
I’m looking forward to seeing more of this relationship and how they help each other on their journeys.
Bess’s roommate Prisha (Shalini Bathin), is so full of life, but as we see in episode three, she’s carrying around a big secret, one that is stopping her from being her true self.
Bess’s other friend, Benny (Phillip Johnson Richardson), is very supportive of Bess and her singing and songwriting. He’s her cheerleader, and she does need that encouragement from time to time.
The one flaw in the first three episodes is how the writers portray the love interests for Bess. One of them shouldn’t even be a love interest. You will see why in the latter part of the first episode. Nothing can happen with this relationship, so I’m not sure why the writers wrote it in.
The other one could be a lot of fun, especially if he were the sole love interest. We’ll have to wait and see what the plan is for these two men.
The writers took an interesting approach and made the episodes only 30 minutes long. Usually, a drama would be 42 minutes to an hour, depending on if you’re watching on linear TV or streaming.
On The Hollywood Reporter‘s podcast, “TV’s Top 5”, the show’s co-creator, Jessie Nelson, says that it was her and Sara Bareilles’s love of short stories that inspired them to make the episodes 30 minutes.
In this podcast episode, co-creator Sara also talks about how much she loved the show Felicity and was inspired to write a coming of age story like Felicity but for a musician. To tie this all together nicely, Little Voice is from Felicity creator, J.J. Abrams’s Bad Robot studio.
You can feel similarities between Felicity and Little Voice. The way that Felicity and Bess have no idea what they are doing and are both finding their way in NYC. There was a lot more drama in Felicity, though. Little Voice feels very rooted in reality, at least the one that we knew about six months ago.
I’m looking forward to seeing where Bess goes on her journey.
The first three episodes of Little Voice are available to stream on Apply TV +. New episodes will drop on Fridays.
