Tag Archives: Parenthood

For the first 30 minutes of last night’s episode of Parenthood, I was pretty bored. Julia wants to have another kid, Kristina wants to help Hattie run for class president, Sarah wants to impress her Amber and her friend, Crosby is clashing with his mother-in-law, blah, blah, blah. It was dull, formulaic and not grabbing my attention at all.

But in the second half of the show, starting with Joel and Julia’s argument over Julia’s admission to Adam that they were trying for another baby, the show flipped a switch, and was really good. That scene in particular grabbed my attention because it was the first truly honest scene between the two of them and finally gave Sam Jaeger a chance to come out from the background. Joel is right that it seems more like it’s Julia’s decision than his, and it was a well acted scene that got the episode to break out of this stagnant, melodramatic mess that it was before.

There were other great moments later in the show, like Hattie losing her temper with Kristina, Sarah finally getting into the concert, and Crosby standing up to Jasmine’s mom, but again, the late emotional beat went to Joel and Julia when they finally decided they were going to officially try for a baby. It was rare to see an episode that had the two of them as the emotional core, but they sold it well and it redeemed an episode that was more frustrating than entertaining. As I’ve said several times, I think Parenthood is best when it finds the honesty and reality in family life, not the cheesy TV moments they sometimes fall into.

This wasn’t a perfect episode, but its second and third acts were good enough to redeem itself and continue to keep me hooked on Parenthood.

Michael’s Score: 70
TUiW Grade: B

Where last week’s season premier seemed disorganized and was full of issues, I was glad to see the show getting back into the swing of things with “No Good Deed.” Parenthood is fortunate enough to have a talented class, and they have the ability to pull some great comedic moments out of some pretty emotional beats. When poor Phil Lessing ended his sobbing with his ridiculous requests for espresso or when Sarah introduced herself to her co-workers by joking about nepotism, you can see the potential this show has to get better and better as it did last season.

On the flip side of the great comedic moments are the occasional moments of real emotion, like Crosby and Jasmine’s fight in the recording studio, which made me once again pause and realize Dax Shepard is actually a decent actor. The naturalism Jason Katims has brought over from Friday Night Lights has finally found its place on Parenthood, and the argument finally got me engaged in Crosby and Jasmine’s relationship because there was finally something genuine there. What Jasmine’s departure means for their relationship, I don’t know, but it looks like things might end up being more complicated than they did at the end of last season.

I wasn’t entirely on board with the whole Sarah Working With Adam thing, which I now realize was pretty foolish because of how good Peter Krause and Lauren Graham are together. They’re both by and large the MVPs of the show and I really enjoyed watching them all episode. I really enjoyed the juxtaposition of both of them returning home after their argument, with Sarah finding no solace in her parents and kids and Adam facing the chaos in his home. When they made up at the end, I liked that they were able to immediately lighten the mood with Graham’s top notch goofiness and Krause’s “aw, come on!” attitude. It’s a nice pairing the show has used very well from the start.

But despite all my praise, I do think there are still issues that need to be addressed. Julia still feels like a lost character, getting stuck again in mundane story about private school mothers  that has no relationship to anything else that’s going on. As much as I liked the Adam and Sarah story, I do think that they’ve done of enough scenes of Adam not believing in Sarah that’s followed with them arguing and making up. Amber and Drew again were reduced to background characters, and I’m not sure how they’re going to bring them out from that.

In the end however, “No Good Deed” reminded me of why I ended up liking Parenthood last season. No, it wasn’t a knockout, but it was sound storytelling and superb acting, and with that you can’t really go wrong.

P.S. I noticed a Dillon Panthers hat hanging in Adam’s doorway and I got really excited.

Michael’s Score: 77
TUiW Grade: B+

Welcome back to the fall TV season! We’re excited another season of television here at TUiW, so stay tuned for recaps of some of the season’s new shows, as well as some returning favorites.

We kick off the season with the first episode of one of my surprise favorites from last season and NBC’s Parenthood. The show developed nicely over its first season, thanks in large part to its strong cast. The first season ended with a couple of interesting arcs, including Crosby’s move to New York and Zeke and Camille’s reconciliation after their marital strife. While I didn’t like the parting shots of the season (a tacky montage of the family at a baseball game that was part of what was wrong with the first half of the season), I had a certain about of anticipation for the new season.

Things picked up generally where they left off, with Zeke working on being less domineering, but generally failing, while Crosby was struggling with his apparent long distance relationship with both Jasmine and Jabbar. Adam is having problems with boss Adam Baldwin, and gets himself into a little trouble when he takes an idea of Sarah’s as his own. Christina is anxious about Hattie’s driving, which causes an accident, while Julia is dealing with her daughter’s interest in where babies come from and whether or not its time for her and Joel to have another baby.

I had some favorite moments in the episode, particularly between Christina and Hattie. Hattie’s offer to pay for the car, followed immediately by her admission that she had no money was pretty funny. Sarah Ramos is a solid young actress that was a bright point of the first season, and her chemistry with her TV mother Monica Potter is always fun to watch.

The emergence of Joel in this episode was also nice to see. Last season, his role seemed primarily to make Julia feel terrible about working so much, staying in the background. But in this episode, he not only was there to serve as Julia’s other half, but he also got to provide encouragement to Sarah and got to stand up to Zeke on the home repair project. Here’s hoping that he becomes a more defined character this year and can help add to the already jam packed cast.

For the good things the episode did though, several of the problems I saw in the show from last season were still there. One of the biggest issues I’ve had with Parenthood since the beginning has been that it’s a little too predictable and warm and fuzzy. As soon as Adam gave his boss Sarah’s idea, I knew where that story was going. It seemed fairly predictable that Jasmine wouldn’t be able to make it out to visit, and that Hattie would eventually get another chance to drive. Does anyone else think Crosby’s inevitably going to hook up with Lyla Garrity Max’s helper?

I hate comparing shows so different, but despite its strong cast, Parenthood lacks the naturalistic elements of executive producer Jason Katim’s superior other show, Friday Night Lights. The characters talk over one another, but often times, it comes at the expense of establishing what’s going on. In the show’s opening moments, I was a little disoriented by the sudden chaos. It works well on Friday Night Lights between Coach and Tammi because they don’t talk over one another until after they’ve established what they’re talking about. On Parenthood, it’s too chaotic, and in fact doesn’t play out naturally, instead seeming fake or contrived.

That gripping aside, “I See You, I Hear You” was an establishing episode in every sense of the word. It will be interesting to see Sarah working with Adam, and I’m looking forward to seeing more of Amber, who popped up only for a second in this episode. My expectations have not been diminished, so here’s hoping for a return to form next week.

Michael’s Score: 60
TUiW Grade: C+

Back in early March, I reviewed the premier episode of Parenthood and gave it a generous B+. In my summation of the the pilot episode, I said that the biggest thing Parenthood had to do was avoid falling into the trappings of any other family drama on television. As I said in March, it had potential to be a really great show, or one that wouldn’t make it through its first season.

Now that Parenthood has wrapped it’s first season, I think I can say it fell somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. The pilot episode was not bad, but the show got off to a rocky start in its first string of episodes. For the most part, the members of the Braverman clan established in the pilot stayed the same for a while: Adam and Kristina (Peter Krause and Monica Potter) were super uptight parents that were dealing with their son’s recently diagnosed autism while largely ignoring their daughter, Hattie (Sarah Ramos).  Adam’s younger sister Sarah (Lauren Graham) had moved her two teenage kids Amber and Drew (Mae Whitman and Miles Heizer) from Fresno and was struggling with her own lack of ambition, Amber’s propensity for trouble, and Drew’s shy nature, not to mention the trials and tribulations of moving back in with her parents. The next sibling was Crosby (Dax Shepard), who awoke from his slacker lifestyle upon the discovery that he had a son, Jabbar, with a dancer, Jasmine (Joy Bryant), that he had a one night stand with several years prior. Last was Julia (Erika Christensen), a workaholic lawyer who found it hard to spend time with her husband Joel (Sam Jaeger) and their daughter. Of course there were also parents Zeek and Camille (Craig T. Nelson and Bonnie Bedelia), who appear to have some problems of their own that weren’t really addressed until the end of the season.

For the most part, the first few episodes felt like they couldn’t really find their footing. The acting was decent enough, but the cast didn’t quite seem comfortable with each other or their roles, and the writing either was tonally off or just lazy. In a lot of ways, the first 6 episodes were two warm and fuzzy, too melodramatic, and too cheesy. Sure it’s nice to see Max, the autistic son, catch a fly ball and get accepted by his team, but it played out like a bad After School Special. Adam chasing a possum that he just can’t catch wasn’t the funniest thing to begin with, but it didn’t fit in the rest of the episode at all. Julia has a feud with another mother at her daughter’s school, but it’s largely based on this other woman’s affection for Joel and an constant reminder that Julia works all the time. The girls were largely dismissed to fairly dull plots too. Amber’s grades aren’t good! Adam doesn’t like Hattie’s boyfriend! Who’s pot is this?

Those first six episodes were heavy on establishment, which is fine, but we were kind of bludgeoned over the head with it. We got that Sarah didn’t live up to expectations, we get that Adam and Kristina are uptight and struggling with Max’s autism, we get that Crosby has to grow up now that he has a son, and on and on. All of this repetition came at the expense of some other, more interesting plots that were either rushed or never really touched on. Sarah falls for a teach that Amber also has a crush on, but it’s basically done in three episodes. Zeek and Camille show up sparingly (especially Camille), and there are hints they’re having problems, but they lead nowhere.

The cast made up largely for some of these narrative faults. Though at first Adam and Kristina were annoyingly high strung, Peter Krause and Monica Potter played off of each other really well, feeding off their characters’ anxiousness. Lauren Graham and Mae Whitman were perfectly in sync with one another, and their scenes were always the highlight of the episode. I was surprised at the acting chops of Dax Shepard, who previously had made a career out of playing the stupid guy in a slew of bad movies. He revealed himself to be kind of likable, and ably played the role of the lazy, dependent slacker that grows up.

I think it’s important to note the show’s odd way to the air. A pilot was picked up with Maura Tierney playing the role of Sarah, but she pulled out of the show when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. This lead to the pilot being re-shot with Lauren Graham recast in the role, and the premier was bumped from the fall to the spring. I’m not sure what the actual impact of this was, and Lauren Graham has been quite good, but I think it’s fair to note that there was a big layoff for the creative team behind the show in between the pilot and the actual start of production of the series.

So despite how hard I’ve been on the show so far, something happened around its seventh episode where it started to get better. The cast seemed comfortable with each other, and the writers largely abandoned some of the repetitive themes they wanted to hammer home in the first half of the season. Adam and Kristina, while still pretty uptight, loosened up and the chemistry between Peter Krause and Monica Potter helped turn them in to two of my favorite characters. Every story about Julia ceased to be about how hard she works and how disconnected she was with her daughter and she became a much more likable character. The chemistry between the siblings themselves got better, their scenes together no longer seeming forced. Lauren Graham and Peter Krause especially seemed to work well together, and the writers ran with it, giving them more to do together.

The stories got more interesting as a result. Rather than just struggling with how to be be a dad and a grown up, Crosby struggled with Jasmine over why he didn’t know about Jabbar and the two became his family. Hattie broke up with her boyfriend at the advice of Amber, only to have Amber sleep with him, a plot that not only played out between the two cousins, but between Amber and Sarah, but Sarah, Kristina, and Adam. The biggest development was the reveal that Zeek had made a bad investment and cheated on Camille, which lead to the two separating. It was interesting not just for the predictable elements of how Camille got back at Zeek or his anguish over it, but the ways in which the siblings dealt with it.

Thought it definitely improved, the second half of the season still had some weaknesses. Joel and Sydney were more or less non-existent characters towards the end of the season, and the bits between Crosby and Jabbar seemed to have one note. Camille remained a largely unexplored character until she and Zeek split, and even then, I don’t think we really got a sense of who she was. There were still moments that felt to warm and fuzzy (especially the last scene of the season which had the family cheering on Drew at his baseball tryout), but they weren’t all quite as tacky as they were earlier in the season.

After last night’s finale, I went back and read my old review, and found it interesting that at one point I said, “A dramedy about the lives of four grown siblings, their parents, and their kids is not going to set the world on fire based on its premise alone, but more in its execution.” With that in mind I think Parenthood had a decent first season. The show’s cast really carried it. Week in and week out, Lauren Graham and Mae Whitman really impressed me, and as I said, I had a lot of fun watching Peter Krause and Monica Potter.

The show can’t function on a great cast alone however, and I’m looking for next season to step up its game in the narrative department. If Parenthood can better compromise between the melodrama and the humor, it will be an even better show. Right now, it doesn’t hold a candle to shows like Mad Men for the depth of its characters, and largely, that’s due to the fact that they haven’t been given a chance to how that depth. I will definitely watch Parenthood when it returns in the fall, but I can promise you I won’t stick with the show if doesn’t continue to grow.

Ultimately, I think the first season of Parenthood didn’t blow me out of the water or make me countdown the days until it returns, but I looked forward to watching it each week and enjoyed watching it improve. It’s definitely on the right track, so I’m interested to see where season 2 takes us.

Episodes 1-6: C

Episodes 7-13: B+

Overall Season:

Michael’s Score: 67

TUiW Grade: B

When watching last night’s much-hyped pilot episode of NBC’s Parenthood, I got to thinking about some of the best and worst premier episodes of all time. On one end of the spectrum, you have pilots from shows like Lost or Mad Men, that instantly announce themselves as being “big” shows that will be supremely enjoyable to watch. Then you have a show like Heroes that has a pilot that’s not bad, but sets up a great season/show (definitely season in that case). Lastly, you have a pilot like that for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which fails to live up to the show’s ambition, and is ultimately an example of why a show will eventually meet its early demise. So the question is, where would Parenthood end up on the spectrum?

The show is certainly ambitious. A dramedy about the lives of four grown siblings, their parents, and their kids is not going to set the world on fire based on its premise alone, but more in its execution. The Braverman Clan is headed by parents Zeke and Camilla (Craig T. Nelson and Bonnie Bedelia). From there you have eldest son Adam (Peter Krause) and his wife Kristina (Monica Potter), and their two kids, Max and Haddie, daughter Sarah (Lauren Graham who took over for Maura Tierney) and her two teenagers Amber and Drew (Mae Whitman and Miles Heizer), daughter Julia (Erika Christianson), who is married to Joel (Sam Jager) and has a daughter, Sydney, and last, there’s ne’er do well son Crosby (Dax Shepard). That’s a lot of information to process right there, and that’s just a who’s who.

In the first episode, we learn that Zeke is a ultra-competitive guy who pushes Adam to be the same way, as is evident by the latter’s propensity to fly off the handle, such as arguing with the ump at Max’s baseball game. Adam and Kristina learn that Max’s generally odd behavior isn’t the result of him just being different, but rather him having Asberger’s. It’s hard to tell what Adam and Kristina’s reaction is, and it’s possible that they don’t even know yet. Meanwhile, they’re teenage daughter Haddie gets taken to the police station with Amber (more on that in a second), apparently because someone had weed and they got mixed up in it. They get picked up though, and the anger of Adam and Kristina subsides quickly as Sarah makes apologies for her daughter.

Meanwhile there’s Sarah, divorced from a drug-addled musician and moving back home with her parents until she lands on her feet. Amber is the rebellious type, initially refusing to move, but eventually being forced. Drew on the other hand seems more upset that he’ll be away from his father more than anything else. Sarah goes on a date with an old flame, who isn’t quite as good looking as he once was, but is still a good guy. They hook up, but not without being discovered by Drew, who runs off to his father. Sarah brings him home and offers an impassioned plea to him that she won’t ever desert him, even if his father has. On the other end though, Sarah dishes out the disappointment with Amber following the arrest, though softens when Amber’s sarcasm turns to genuine advice before Sarah’s date.

Julia is a high powered super busy attorney who’s as aggressive as Adam and Zeke, but there’s an arrogance there that is missing in the other siblings. Her biggest concern is that because of her constant absence, Sydney seems to prefer her dad to her mother, asking for him to cut her food or sing to her. Julia is hurt by this, but that doesn’t stop her from heckling Sarah, something it seems she does quite successfully.

Lastly, there’s Crosby, who has just gotten back together with his occasional girlfriend (if you couldn’t place her face like me, it’s Marguerite Morneau of Wet Hot American Summer). When he finds a container of sperm in her fridge, she pressures him into agreeing to have a baby, within three years. Meanwhile, an ex keeps emailing him and, surprise, he has five year old son he doesn’t know about!

The pilot definitely jumps right in to the story, not spending a ton of time introducing us to the characters, but rather telling us what we need to know to get the story going, with the promise of more exposition to come. Not only do they hit the ground running, but talking. The banter between everyone is fast and often overlapping, and it at times was challenging to keep up. One particular scene, where the four siblings end up in the same place, flew by so quickly, it was as if it were on fast forward. The thing is though, it wasn’t unrealistic, and rather seemed like the kind of thing this family has been used to for a long time.

The strongest thing about Parenthood is its cast, as would be expected based on the names on the bill. I was worried when I heard that Lauren Graham would step in for Maura Tierney was that it would be too similar to her Gilmore Girls role, but she plays the part really well. Peter Krause is also predictably strong, as is Craig T. Nelson. Surprisingly, Dax Shepard was pretty good in his role as Crosby, not being as annoying as he frequently is.

So what’s the final verdict on the Parenthood pilot episode? Right now I’m thinking it falls into the middle category, a decent episode of a show that has potential to be either really good or barely make it through the season. Parenthood has a lot going on, and a pilot is designed give the viewer an indication of what’s to come, so I can excuse the information overload for right now. The success of this show is going to rely on how the show can keep itself from veering into the “stock largely family drama” territory. I have a lot of faith in the team behind this show, including Ron Howard, Brain Grazer, Jason Katims (Friday Night Lights), and Thomas Schalamme (Sports Night, The West Wing), who directed last night. It was a pretty solid pilot that at the very least convinced me to tune in again next week.

Michael’s Score: 77

Tangled Up In Wires Grade: B+

Note: I haven’t decided if I’m going to keep reviewing Parenthood every week, but I’ll probably keep tabs on the first couple episodes to see if it’s worth a weekly review or not. We’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter in the comments!