I kinda like that one. It has its moments. Is it canceled too?
I guess Robin William is laughing his ass off. His show was up against MJF. The return of the classic sit com stars. Robin’s show, The Crazy Ones, is doing really well.
I’ve been watching both shows, and agree. What has really surprised me, though, is that I expected The Crazy Ones to be a Robin Williams vehicle. I’ve really been surprised by how funny Sarah Michelle Gellar can be.
I liked what I saw of the show, but I didn’t like it enough to watch it regularly. Maybe if it had been in a less busy (for me anyway) timeslot.
Some of my thoughts on what went wrong (or right).
The style of the show was poorly thought out. E.g., they did the talking-to-the-camera thing like <insert a bunch of other shows> do. But they did it badly and without any originality. If you’re going to do this, think of a different way of doing it. Rehashing the same thing is boring. Ditto the working dad, stay at home mom, 3 generic kids, stuff. Boring.
Serious cast/character flaws. The two oldest kids and the sister were black holes of comedy suckitude. The more air time they got, they worse it was. The littlest kid was funny once in a while, but they didn’t play to his strength enough.
OTOH, Wendell Pierce (Bunk!) nailed almost every scene he was in. The guy is just flat our great.
The contrast in acting between Pierce and the rest makes me wonder if the writing wasn’t as bad as it seemed. That with a more capable cast, the show would have been noticeably better.
They had Anne Heche on several episodes as Fox’s nemesis. Good actress, of course. But she was a one-note character and strangely had little to do in several of our appearances. This sort of thing is a symptom of a poorly thought out show.
The core premise was poorly used. Fox’s character was a newsman with Parkinsons who decided to go back to work. The Parkinsons part was premise-bound. OTOH, the coming back to work after several years off was potentially worthwhile. Tech, styles, etc. had changed. The news had become more tabloidy. Etc. Lots of interesting things could have been explored there. But no.
There are, to me, 3 basic categories of sitcoms today. The cutting edge, new ideas type like Louie or Community. The “adult” (actually quite childish IMHO) ones like 2 and Half Men or 2 Broke Girls. And the classic format with safe, old plots and a laugh track in the Everybody Loves Raymond style . The MJF Show was in the latter category. But not fully. And it certainly wasn’t cutting edge. They should have either done a more generic, simpler show (alas) or tried something novel.