Three “new” family comedies that are available On Demand a few weeks before their “official” premieres, and not a one of them worth watching. “Unconventional” family comedies (i.e. gay dad, or a step-mom, or a single mom, or adopted Asian kid for a step mom, basically anything other than a nuclear family) are the big trend of the Fall, and yet they feel very, very old fashioned. Somewhere between Modern Family and The New Normal, I think we all got the message that families can take a lot of different shapes, the problem is taking that message and making it feel remotely worth watching on a weekly basis. Once you get past a pretty basic argument with rednecks about what a family looks like, these shows aren’t really saying anything remotely interesting. It’s just generic family comedies with some window dressing.
Back in the Game…A single mom has to move back home to live with her blowhard dad (James Caan, looking like he’d rather be on a boat catching trout somewhere) and somehow gets the idea that what she really needs to do to get her life together is coach a little league baseball team of misfits. Kids-say-the-darnest things-humor ensues, but it’s the adult cast that needs to work on their (forgive the pun, couldn’t resist) game. Grade for pilot: C-
Welcome to the Family…This isn’t the premise of a comedy, it’s the premise of a cautionary tale. A nice, over achieving Hispanic boy is the golden hope for his family since he’s the Valedictorian of his high school and has just been accepted to Stanford. An ignorant, entitled train wreck of a white girl gives her parents nothing but trouble, and is pregnant with the Hispanic boy’s kid. The dads hate each other, and the boy says he won’t go to Stanford so he can help raise the kid. The word “abortion” is never even mentioned as a solution. [Will I burst into flames if I even say the word on broadcast TV? Or, G-A-S-P, admit it’s the right thing to do in this situation?] Does this show even seem to get that these kids are making a huge mistake? Nope. [The girl is so selfish and inconsiderate she texted the news that she was pregnant to the boy right before he gave his valedictorian speech.] I can’t help but feel that all these shows acting like teen pregnancy is no big deal, and a minor problem that will work itself out for young love are warping people’s perceptions of this issue. [The U.S. has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the industrialized world…and no, the couples usually don’t stay together. There’s also the highest single mom rate in the industrialized world.] Grade for pilot: D-
Trophy Wife…A one-joke show where Malin Akerman is struggling to raise her new husband’s three kids from two previous marriages. I liked the adopted Chinese boy but couldn’t say that the rest of the cast left any impression whatsoever. I don’t really even believe that Bradley Whitford would attract Malin Akerman’s party girl even in a sitcom where the premise depends on it. Grade for pilot: C+