I watched the first one last night, I liked it enough that I’ll watch the second one. Nothing great at this point but nothing terrible so I will give it another try.
I watched it and gave it a chance but nothing grabbed my interest. You’ve seen it alll before except for the Parkinson’s, but that’s not enough to carry the show.
I also thought Betsy Brandt Is really badly cast. for one thing, she’s still too closely bound to Breaking Bad to Be seen in another role, but more importantly, she is entirely too young to play that character. If she is the mother of a 20-year-old son, Michael would have been arrested for statutory rape.
Just watched the second episode. 50 pounds of cliched sitcom situations in a 10 pound sack. Sorry, Mike, it’s over between us.
Treacly perky. I saw both episodes — the “pilot” — and the one after it. Neither generated any laughs. Aside from the Parkinson’s — see, we’re an ordinary, triply perky family despite it, or even because of it — it’s as stereotypical as a sitcom can be; even with the youngest kid going on 42. I fast-forwarded through the second “first” episode after the “pilot.” Perky, perky, perky. [Lou Grant] I hate perky. [/Lou Grant]
She’s in her late 30s, very-early 40s. Her son is a would-be freshman, so she’s 20 years older, which isn’t that bad for TV. (In contrast, MJF and his TV mom are only 15 years apart.)
Also, not that many people watch Breaking Bad. Last week, BB had it’s highest rated show ever and only had 6.6 million viewers, which is tiny compared to a most network TV. Not that many people who watch NBC know who she is.
She’s 36 in real life. I would have guessed older, myself.
Not many people watch NBC comedies. Parks and Recreation had 3.3 million, so if it were new it would be cancelled in a week. The MJF episodes had 7.2 million viewers, and I guarantee they will never have that many again.
With Netflix and other viewing sources, far more people will know her from Breaking Bad than will find her on NBC.
I watched the second episode. Oy vey does it suck. So I am giving up on it.
I was just coming in to say that it looks like I’m alone in not liking it much, but now I see I am not. 
Hated it. Not one laugh. Seriously. Not one. And I am MJF’s fan still from Family Ties days.
You might be on to something there…
Some shows are built around a star who is not known for their acting, usually they are surrounded by talented people (Seinfeld, Romano, Rosanne). Others have a talented person in the center, and even more talented or colorful people around them (Frazier, 30 Rock). But IMHO the riskiest is putting the talent in the center and surrounding them with filler, it sounds like that’s what might have happened here.
I’m with you Terr.
I WANTED to like it. I watched all of the first episode thinking “it has to get better.”
I started watching the second episode… and made the game time decision that my time is more valuable. Because it’s MJF, if I hear later on that it’s turned into a pretty good show; I’ll probably give it another go.
Same here. Wanted to like it because who doesn’t like MJF. But I didn’t. The writing sucked.
Wow, that means she graduated from High School when she was 14. Guess that explains the Harvard degree at age 19.
Interestingly enough, her wiki and IMDB pages don’t list her age.
It has been pulled from the schedule. The remaining episodes may be burned off at a later time. (And there are a lot of them, NBC ordered a full season without even seeing a pilot.)
Here’s a story about what went wrong.
The same is true with Sean Saves the World.
The head of NBC entertainment is reported to have expressed regrets about going big on shows based solely on the lead actor. Well, duh.
It has remained an awful show. That I was forced to watch by Mrs FtG. The hour hole in the schedule is being replaced by a game show. So much for Must See Thursday.
MJF is now free to make more appearances on The Good Wife.
I’ve been a big MJF fan my entire adult life. I watch the first six or seven episodes of his new show and had to give up. I was embarrassed for MJF. He deserved much better writing than this mess. The characters were so flat and at times almost sit com parodies. The annoying but oh so wisecracking, angst driven teen daughter. The lazy college drop out son. The annoying neighbor/sister constantly dropping by. These are such tired and over used sitcom characters.
Did it have a laugh track? I never saw it.
Was it a victim of poor writing mainly or a bad cast?
I love Michael J Fox and I so wanted this to be a good show
I watched it for a few weeks even after realizing it was a shitty show
I just couldn’t do it anymore
I’m glad it got cancelled. It was a stupid show,
still I love Michael J. Fox. he is a national treasure.
It had Betsy Brandt and Wendell Pierce! It’s hard to make an uninteresting show with that kind of cast. Based on the two episodes I saw, they managed somehow.
I watched the first one or two, but it didn’t grab me enough for regular viewing. Caught part of another episode several weeks later and saw they were doing the “talking head” shtick like Office or Modern Family, which I didn’t remember from the earlier episodes. That pretty much killed it for me.
Mediocre writing.
I think I’ve watched most of it. It’s been not very good. Rarely awful - there’ve only been one or two really bad episodes. But it’s never quite made it to inspired. Usually, one of the story lines kind of fails altogether, one falls kind of flat, and one is mostly amusing, but nothing really outright kills. It feels like it needed a ruthless editor; someone to tighten up the scripts, cut story ideas that just weren’t working, and push harder on ideas that are. Also, someone in charge needed to have a stronger sense of direction about the show; it was kind of aimless.
The show was not without potential. Again, the writing wasn’t embarrassingly bad, it just needed more work. The cast was pretty good. I can see why NBC bet on it, it just didn’t work.