Review: Primos “Summer of Tater; Summer of Primos”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Nine year old Tater Ramirez Humphrey gets ready to use her summer to find her “final form” but is interrupted by her twelve cousins arriving and staying for the whole summer.

OUR TAKE

THIS Disney show certainly knew how to drudge up some controversy long before it came out. Back when Primos was announced last year, there was a shit ton of criticism over the title, the main characters’ Spanish grammar, the name of the setting, and even the tint of the colors. These were all understandable to some extent, but creator Natasha Kline had to come out and defend herself as to why some of these choices were made, pointing out the series was inspired by her own experiences being a Mexican-American, something that is going to vary for many people in that group. Well, I guess that seemed to be convincing enough for Disney to let the show keep going with production, as the first season has now begun with thirty episodes planned. And just like with just about any other show or movie I end up seeing that’s surrounded by controversy, when you clear away the haze of all the disagreements about certain things, Primos is, at the end of the day…just fine. This first episode is a pretty solid introduction to the premise and characters, naturally coming from Tater’s perspective as she gets used to all of these people become bigger parts of her life than she expected.

As for where I see this show going, well that seems kinda obvious but let’s explain it to pad out the word count. Each of the cousins, aka Primos, have their own pretty distinct personality, much like other big family shows like The Loud House or The Casagrandes which many have pointed out a resemblance to in premise. So, while this first couple of segments are mainly about Tater learning to adjust to her cousins as a collective entity, we’ll likely see each one get an episode to themselves as we get to know them individually. There’s a plant guy, a rock star, a nerdy scientist (that one seems like it’s practically obligatory in these things), and plenty of other personalities that will no doubt get plenty of focus throughout the show, with plenty of time for all of them across the initially planned thirty episodes. Then again, with the streak Disney has been on lately with canceling shows after only two seasons, they may want to get on fleshing out everyone a bit quicker than planned. But yeah, watch it if this seems interesting to you, but if not, don’t! I’m sure your family has enough drama already right now.