Advance Review: NBC’s Dysfunctional “Parenthood”

By: Stephanie Sigafoos

NBC execs describe the new drama Parenthood as “following the ups and downs of a very large, very colorful and imperfect family.”

They’re not lying. The problem is that the show takes words like “large” and “imperfect” and by the end of the pilot episode, spins the shortcomings of the typical American family into one of the most dysfunctional adaptations in recent memory.

The show kicks off with Adam Braverman (Peter Krause) taking a leisurely jog through the neighborhood. By the time he gets around the block he’s wheezing and out of breath, stopping long enough to answer a cell phone that suddenly won’t stop ringing. Adam’s father has a problem with some pipes that run under the house. His sister Sarah, a single mother with two kids, is moving back home but can’t hit the road before she finds her daughter (who ran off with her underachieving boyfriend); and Adam’s wife is calling to complain that their son really doesn’t want to play baseball anymore.

The whirlwind of events and character introductions is enough to make your head spin before the first commercial break. The cast, which includes Lauren Graham, Craig T. Nelson, Bonnie Bedelia, Monica Potter, Erika Christensen and Dax Shepard also never gels.  Their problems, both large and small, feel completely disconnected as the episode plows forward. Sarah gets set up on a semi-blind date with an old high school flame. He’s now bald and works at a coffee shop, but they fall in bed together and are discovered by her teenage son. The kid runs away to Fresno, back to the dead-beat musician dad with the oft-mentioned drug habit. She runs off to fetch him, not long after bailing her daughter out of jail for marijuana possession. And you’d probably feel sorry for all of them if Sarah wasn’t jobless, living in her parents’ basement  and still stealing condoms from the top drawer of their desk with the enthusiasm of a hormonal teenager.

On paper, the script probably looked good. To anyone who is a husband, wife, son, daughter, parent, brother, sister, cousin, aunt, uncle, etc. – there’s probably some of it that’s relatable. But the entertainment value falls flat, adopting tired Hollywood cliches (the guy who doesn’t want to be a dad finds out he’s got a son he never knew existed) while attempting to tackle more serious, real-world problems (discovering your child has  a mild form of autism).  At the end of the day you expect the clan to be edgy and irritable, not breaking bread at the dinner table and piling into a caravan to root on the kid who really didn’t want to play baseball.

In truth, it’s like trying to clear a train wreck with a Brawny paper towel. The happy ending, with the scrawny kid making contact with the ball, is apparently supposed to convey some sort of noble gesture when he decides to be there for his team. And of course proud papa Adam looks on lovingly from behind the chain link fence, his chest swelling with pride because he really, really loves his kid and he really, really loves baseball.

The problem with this version of Parenthood is that it doesn’t mirror real life as much as it overexaggerates child-rearing into something only insane people would attempt. It’s also missing the comedy that made Ron Howard’s 1989 flick of the same name a lot more memorable. And, yes, it’s early in the series – but by the end of Tuesday’s episode you can’t help but wish that all these four siblings, their children and their parents would all just … grow up a little and get on with lives that don’t play out on a completely forgettable TV show.

Parenthood premieres Tuesday, March 2 at 10 p.m. EST on NBC.

Posted by Adam Wright on February 27, 2010. Filed under Preview, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry