User:Anchalvasandani/sandbox

// Notes //

One Day at a Time

One Day at a Time is a Netflix original drama about a Cuban family living in America and it is inspired by Norman Lear’s 1975 sitcom called One Day at a Time. The difference from the 1975 sitcom to the 2017 are obviously the actors but also in the 1975 sitcom it was about a divorced single mom raising two teenage daughters, and in the 2017 one it’s about a mother separated from her husband (not officially divorced) and she supports her son, daughter, and her mother.

Background

The series was created by Gloria Kellet and Mike Royce and the first season has 13 episodes. Justina Machado (Penelope Alvarez) is the protagonist in this series because it’s a walk on her life and how she has to deal with multiple obstacles. The supporting actors who occur sporadically throughout the series are her children, Elena Alvarez (Isabella Gomez) and Alex Alvarez (Marcel Ruiz), her mother Lydia Riera (Rita Moreno), her neighbor Scheneider (Todd Grinnel).

Plot

Penelope Alvarez, a newly single army veteran, has taken her Cuban family back to America to raise her two children and support her mother, Lydia. She is currently a nurse for Dr. Leslie Berkowitz (Stephen Tobolowsky), that works a regular shift so she can return home to her loving family at the end of the day. However, being back for Penelope has been hard she faces a lot of hardships as she has not been in contact with her husband, Victor Alvarez (James Martinez) for far too long. He is also in the army but he is a raging alcoholic, that was asked to stay back in Afghanistan, which is what made Penelope complete her term and move to Los Angeles.

Meanwhile as she battles working day in day out at the office, her mother Lydia always sees to it that her grandchildren has a meal in front of them for dinner if she does not make it back in time from Dr. Berkotwitz’s office.

Theme Song and Opening Credits

The theme song for One Day At a Time, is “This is It’ and it is sung by Gloria Estefan, who adds a Spanish twist to it. The original song was actually composed by Brill Building and song writer Jeff Barry, and his wife Nancy Barry, performed by recording artist Polly Cutter.