Life Sentence is an American comedy-drama television series that ran on The CW from March 7 to June 15, 2018. The series was created by Erin Cardillo and Richard Keith. The series stars Lucy Hale as the lead role Stella Abbott, who discovers that her terminal cancer is cured.
Due to deficiency in viewing numbers, the series moved from its initial Wednesdays at 9:00 p.m. time slot to Fridays at 9:00 p.m. following Dynasty, starting April 27, swapping time slots with The Originals.
The series was officially cancelled on April 30, 2018, after one season.[1]
Summary[]
When Stella finds out her terminal cancer is cured, she is going to have to learn to live with all the choices she made when she decided to "live like she was dying". As she adjusts to her post-cancer world, she learns how her husband and family must also deal with the self-destructive choices they made to help Stella enjoy what they thought were her final years.
Cast[]
- Lucy Hale as Stella Abbott
- Elliot Knight as Wes Charles
- Jayson Blair as Aiden Abbott
- Brooke Lyons as Elizabeth Abbott Rojas
- Carlos PenaVega as Diego Rojas
- Gillian Vigman as Ida Abbott
- Dylan Walsh as Peter Abbott
- Nadej Bailey as Sadie
Episodes[]
| No. in series | No. in season | Episode title | Written by | Directed by | Original airdate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | "Pilot" | Erin Cardillo & Richard Keith | Lee Toland Krieger | March 7, 2018 |
| 2 | 2 | "Re-Inventing the Abbotts" | Erin Cardillo & Richard Keith | Lee Toland Krieger | March 14, 2018 |
| 3 | 3 | "Clinical Trial and Error" | Margaret Easley & Laura Putney | David Warren | March 21, 2018 |
| 4 | 4 | "How Stella Got Her Groove On" | Lisa Melamed & Erin Cardillo & Richard Keith | Roger Kumble | March 28, 2018 |
| 5 | 5 | "Wes Side Story" | Oliver Goldstick | Arlene Sanford | April 4, 2018 |
| 6 | 6 | "Who Framed Stella Abbott?" | Nelson Soler | Norman Buckley | April 27, 2018 |
| 7 | 7 | "Our Father the Hero" | Tad Safran | Viet Nguyen | May 4, 2018 |
| 8 | 8 | "Sleepless Near Seattle" | Zach Dodes | Ellen S. Pressman | May 11, 2018 |
| 9 | 9 | What to Expect When You're Not Expecting | Louisa Levy | John T. Kretchmer | May 18, 2018 |
| 10 | 10 | The Way We Work | Laura Putney & Margaret Easly | Janice Cook | May 25, 2018 |
| 11 | 11 | Frisky Business | Nelson Soler, Erin Cardillo & Richard Keith | Tessa Blake | June 1, 2018 |
| 12 | 12 | Love Factually | Oliver Goldstick | Michael Grossman | June 8, 2018 |
| 13 | 13 | Then & Now | Erin Cardillo & Richard Keith | John T. Kretchmer | June 15, 2018 |
Production[]
Development[]
The series was created by Erin Cardillo and Richard Keith for The CW as a midseason entry during the 2017–18 television season. They are also executive producers on the series along with Oliver Goldstick, Bill Lawrence, Jeff Ingold, and director Lee Toland Krieger. The show is produced by In Good Company, Doozer Productions, CBS Television Studios and Warner Bros. Television and filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The series is set in the fictional town of Nashville, Oregon.
The CW officially ordered Life Sentence to series on May 10, 2017. In August 2017, star Lucy Hale announced that the series was set to premiere in January 2018. However, a later announcement of the network's winter premieres revealed that the series had been pushed back to March 7, 2018.
On March 30, 2018, the CW announced that Life Sentence would move to Fridays at 9pm, which began with the sixth episode.
Casting[]
In late January 2017, Lucy Hale was cast as Stella Abbott, followed in February by the casting of Jayson Blair as her older brother, Aiden and Dylan Walsh as her father, Paul.
On February 24, 2017, Gillian Vigman and Brooke Lyons were cast as Ida and Elizabeth, Abbott's mother and sister, respectively. During March 2017, it was announced that Elliot Knight and Carlos PenaVega had joined the cast as Wes, Abbott's husband, and Diego, her brother-in-law, respectively.
During September 2017, Riley Smith was cast in the recurring role of Dr. Will Grant, a rough-around-the-edges oncologist with a secret soft spot for his patients.
Reception[]
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the series holds an approval rating of 37% based on 19 reviews, and an average rating of 4.47/10. Its critical consensus reads, "Life Sentence avoids asking tough questions about serious issues, settling instead for a cloying sweetness." On Metacritic, which assigns normalized rating to reviews, the series has a weighted average score of 49 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews"
Gallery[]
External links[]
- Life Sentence Wiki on FANDOM
- Life Sentence on Wikipedia