A League of Their Own: A League of Their Own
August 12, 2022 10:27 AM - Season 1 (Full Season) - Subscribe

Following the journey of the WWII All-American professional women's baseball league players as they travel across a rapidly changing U.S.
posted by geoff. (18 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
When the streaming services release the entire season at once I tend to watch a couple in a row and don't know whether to do the entire season or them one at a time. So I just went with the entire season.

I liked all the main cast members, but Nick Offerman stuck out. I feel misogynist saying that the best person in the cast is a man, but Nick Offerman really owns anything he's in. Abbi Jacobson plays her Broad City character and at first it is kind of jarring to see a quirky funky trendsetting Brooklyn self-aware hipster in the 1940s, but it eventually works out.

My only big complaint is the Negroes League portion which didn't take place in the 40s and took place after MLB began integration, using women to fill in the holes of the lineup that the men lacked. I think a series based solely on that story would be very interesting and kind of odd they felt the need to shoehorn it into this.

This feels like must watch television without being at the level of high drama like Severance might be. Oh and Rosie O'Donnell is the owner of a gay bar! So that kind of could also be a show on its own.
posted by geoff. at 10:55 AM on August 12, 2022


Ooh excited for this. More baseball series, please, I'm still mad Pitch only got one season.
posted by the primroses were over at 4:02 PM on August 12, 2022 [4 favorites]


Is "Nat Faxon must be in every streaming series" in the Inflation Reduction Act?
posted by Etrigan at 6:35 PM on August 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


More baseball series, please

This isn't really a baseball show, it drifts away from baseball and becomes less and less important as the season progresses unfortunately. There's a pretty heavy social agenda, as one review put it, and it really focuses on the affairs each player has. The only time it becomes cringeworthy is Rosie O'Donnell pontificating that she can be married to a woman and Abbi Jacobson acting shocked. She's been like a teenager in love with a woman the entire show, ditches her husband for a woman, is in a gay bar in the 1940s and doesn't even consider that she might be able to be with her forever?

It is still a good show, it takes a few episodes to get its footing, but it finds it. I find it kind of hard to believe that every single player, except one is it?, is seemingly a lesbian. Maybe if there was more conflict or people hiding their sexuality it would have seemed a bit more realistic or added more tension. But again that's minor compared to my complaint about the two shows in one I mentioned above. The plot lines of the AAGL and the Negro Leagues barely overlap, and kind of jarring it is the same show.
posted by geoff. at 3:43 AM on August 13, 2022


I find it kind of hard to believe that every single player, except one is it?, is seemingly a lesbian.

A lot of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League players were lesbians.
posted by Blue Jello Elf at 6:23 PM on August 13, 2022 [10 favorites]


What an incredible cast.
posted by porpoise at 2:11 AM on August 14, 2022 [2 favorites]




Unsurprisingly, autostraddle has a whole lot of ALOTO coverage, including interviews with the actors and even a quiz.
posted by gingerbeer at 3:59 PM on August 14, 2022 [1 favorite]


One episode in, and seeing Abbi in the smokey bar really makes me want to see Val!
posted by Acari at 7:24 PM on August 15, 2022 [2 favorites]


I loved this show. I'm not even sure how I started watching because I had heard nothing about it. Super fun, talented ensemble cast. A non-binary/transmasculine character who is stunning and loving. Fabulous friendships between women, and romances for queer people. I agree that it isn't really a baseball story, but that's a feature, not a bug as far as I'm concerned. It didn't seem strange to me that Carson would be shocked to hear about two women happily marrying each other since this was just not a worldview that existed at the time. In North America people were being put in jail for wearing clothes assigned to a different gender or just for being gay (not even necessarily having sex) until at least the 1970s. And it wasn't really until after WWII when women gained some earning power that they were able to contemplate leaving larger birth/marriage family units. At the end of the show we learn Carson can't open a bank account without her husband's permission, for example.

I loved the little nods from Clance about racism in comic books and the Wizard of Oz as a colonialist work. The factory job Max tries to get, as well as the pitching gig were textbook examples of intersectionality.

After watching I found this twitter thread from Will Graham. In it he writes about and links to many of the real-life stories that inspired the show, including the number of lesbians in the league (lots), the history of the Negro Leagues (beginning well before WWII) and the inclusion of Latine players in the AAGPBL.

Despite the history this show was mostly fun and uplifting to watch. I will cross my fingers and hope for season 2.
posted by Cuke at 3:19 PM on August 20, 2022 [6 favorites]


I find it kind of hard to believe that every single player, except one is it?, is seemingly a lesbian.

OG pitcher Maybelle Blair estimated 400/650 of the players in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League were gay, so about 60%. That's... actually higher queer rep than the reboot cast, which clocks in at 46%!

If you've never been in a room full of lezzes, you are underestimating the magnetic draw we have for each other, the lengths to which we'll go to carve out community in hostile environments, the incestuous nature of relationships in minority groups, and our broad appreciation for tall socks and athletic apparel :) I have had entire conversations in gay nods right under the nose of straight men who had no idea they were surrounded. No, we don't all know each other but.. yeah also we kinda do. Sports are a haven for many!
posted by lloquat at 6:22 PM on August 22, 2022 [7 favorites]


Just finished the final episode and WOW. What a great series! I really loved the entire cast, and thought the way they structured the parallel stories of Carson and Max was just brilliant. But I have to say, what a waste of Nick Offerman! He's only in 2 episodes! I kept expecting him to reappear. But you know what? The team didn't need him and neither did the story. I hope there will be a Season 2!
posted by pjsky at 7:36 PM on August 22, 2022 [3 favorites]


Finally managed to watch this and it was as good as I was hoping! Autostraddle’s recaps linked above are excellent. It was so good to see so many different kinds of well developed LGBTQ/NB characters!!
posted by ellieBOA at 1:33 PM on August 29, 2022 [1 favorite]


I have finally finished the season, and I really enjoyed it. I thought the parallel plots with Max and Carson worked well.

The constant modern slang in the dialogue didn't work for me. It got less distracting as the series went on, but then at the end Carson's speech about how if they lose, it should be EPIC pulled me out again. This is just a quibble; I can think of several good reasons the writers might have decided to go that way - the choice didn't quite land with me though.

I loved glamorous but vulnerable D'Arcy Carden, and Abbi Jacobson and Chanté Adams both carried their stories well.

Max and Clance's friendship was my favorite part of the series - they had such great friend chemistry. The scene when they were both trying to pretend they were fine at the factory and then revenge ate their coworkers lunches was a stand out for me.

I always enjoy seeing Nick Offerman, but I think the usage of his character here was weird. I wonder if there were more scenes with him that got cut? Dove seemed to either get too much screentime or not enough.

I would have happily accepted more baseball scenes, but I don't think the baseball aspect was egregiously shorted. I would, however, like a similar comedy drama series set only in the Negro Leagues as geoff. suggested. I stand by my request for more scripted baseball series!
posted by the primroses were over at 8:43 AM on September 4, 2022 [1 favorite]


Of the main cast, the characters of Maybelle Fox and Shirley Cohen would appear to be solely straight (so far..?) on the team, and Clance outside that. The Negro leagues were close to winding down at the time it is set (1943) and, so far, we've not seen that either Esther nor Max were going to play in those leagues.

aiui the team are working on a second season but it won't be funded/confirmed for a month or two yet. (I'm on my third re-watch)
posted by Inanna at 11:17 AM on September 7, 2022


I have now watched ALOTO three times and each time I like it better. This show is amazing, the writing is fantastic, the actors are wonderful and I need Amazon to announce they have renewed it for Season 2 because I NEED TO KNOW HOW CLANCE REACTS TO FINDING OUT HER BEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE WORLD IS GAY. I already know Gbemisola Ikumelo is going to break my heart. She and Chante Adams are so great.
posted by pjsky at 5:57 PM on October 11, 2022 [1 favorite]


Amazon’s ‘A League of Their Own’ to End With Four-Episode Second Season: The queer series from Will Graham and Abbi Jacobson will conclude with an abbreviated run following months of negotiations with producers Sony TV. 😢
posted by ellieBOA at 2:51 AM on March 15, 2023


From the showrunner: Just to answer the questions: The stuff that came out today is a leak and it isn't official, which is why we aren't saying anything. So if you want to see more episodes or more seasons of this show, now is your moment. People are listening.
posted by ellieBOA at 2:52 AM on March 15, 2023


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