Given that itâs marketed to women and not aiming for critical acclaim, the genre is often unfairly maligned or underestimated. But even by Netflix soap standards, Firefly Lane is underwhelming, leaning too heavily on the saccharine, asking too much of its capable leads, and whizzing too often through hazily connected timelines to land an emotional punch. The show contains all the requisite parts for a mass crowd-pleaser: two proven network stars in Heigl (Greyâs Anatomy) and Chalke (Scrubs) as a textbook yin-yang pair â Tully the magnetic cool girl with an icebox heart and bruised past of family abandonment, Kate the awkward, perennially overshadowed nerd with a stable family in childhood and middle-age. Their 30 years of best friendship is relayed through a This Is Us-style mash of skipping timelines that drop in and out of notable memories and loosely sketched life phases.