We had the opportunity to see a preview of JOYLAND A New Series that premieres tomorrow night on YouTube. We wanted to share our first impressions without giving anything away.
We really enjoyed what we saw from the premiere episode. This a very gritty and real series. Being based in the ’60’s keep in mind nothing is sugar coated including the language. This may not be appropriate for younger viewers and viewer discretion is advised.
Be sure to tune in Monday, March 22nd @ 7PM EST JOYLAND a new series on YouTube Channel, JOYLAND A New Series.
Synopsis:
Joyland begins in 1964 in New York City, aflame with protests after a cop has shot an unarmed African American teen, and at a Catskills bungalow colony, the iconic summer getaway for New York’s working and middle class.
Joyland follows the stories of former New York Knicks star Marty Dent’s dream of resurrecting his city – and himself – by bringing a basketball team to Brooklyn in the new American Basketball Association, and his former teammate and best friend Reverend Julian Bass, the dynamic Martin Luther King-like minister of Brooklyn’s First Church of Christ, who is trying to bridge the racial and class divide.
Joyland encompasses Julian’s wife Tyra Bass, the city’s first Black assistant high school principal who’s swept up in the explosive initial wave of school desegregation busing, pitting her against Marty’s wife Deb Dent, a conservative political activist, and Kenneth Lapidus, a powerful, politically connected department store magnate who mulls a run for Mayor while his defiant daughter Karen struggles to carve out her own career, juggling an unfaithful husband and unstable teenage daughter.
As we see the gray moralities of business owners Mr. Wilt and Sal Cumpella, the struggles of Edna Morton and her African American lover Red Harrison – recovering from a brutal racist attack – to save the Breezy Meadows Bungalow Colony, and teenager Aaron Dent, a fast-talking would-be talent agent terrified of his awakening homosexuality, the series intersects real-life personalities and real-life events from the worlds of politics, entertainment and sports, from Lyndon Johnson and Bobby Kennedy, Rodney Dangerfield and Moms Mabley, to Bob Cousy and Connie Hawkins.
