ToddTee

Evidently several reviewers who pan this show as "unrealistic" have never seen any of today's mega-hit action movies. They are all "unrealistic", "over the top", etc. They make no attempt to be realistic. They focus on being FUN.

An LA Times movie critic called this show "ridiculous, but fun". EXACTLY!!! If you want realism, watch a documentary. This show is intended to provide entertainment, pure and simple, and on that score I give it high marks. All of the actors are archetypes of the character types that they portray, and at that they seem to me to all excel. They are no different than the superhero genre of films that are raking in so many $$$ at the box office today.

As with every episode of this wonderful (at least IMHO), involving family drama, the plot lines all read true, at least to those of us who grew up in the middle class. This episode follows the evolving romances of Crosby and Sarah Braverman, both not quite normal - which makes them oh-so-normal - and therefore most interesting, and the budding romance of high school girl Haddie, plus a few other minor subplots that carry over from episode to episode. There's none of the formulaic character to these plot lines, so you never know quite where things are headed.

As I've said in reviews of earlier episodes, so many of the things that happen on "Parenthood" are things that I've seen, heard of, or personally experienced in my time on this planet, which I can't say of many shows on TV. The more I watch the show, the more richly layered things become.