I'm writing this review for one reason. This thing turned itself around hard. I have no idea if they got new writers or what, but after the first two episodes I was like everybody else and ready to bail on the show. But I gave it one more shot and it totally swayed me. They've aired 4 episodes as I write this and the last two are hugely better than the first two, which were kind of all over the place and not very funny.
The show seems to have settled down and figured out what it wants to be, which looks like a throwback comedy with some basic conflict and a cute resolution at the end. And I'd say it does that slightly better than average.
One thing I will say though, in reading some of the early stuff on here, the guy who plays David, Johnathan McClain, seems to have caught some heat, which is crazy to me. I think dude's the best thing about the show. I read a review of this series in The Daily News which called his work solid, and I totally agree, and in the last two episodes he's far and away the funniest part of the show. He seems natural and comfortable on screen, and frankly looks like he's putting way more effort into making the thing work than George Segal and Jessica Walters. Somebody I read said they should have gotten Matthew Perry, which is weird because to me dude seems to be playing a cross between Perry and Schwimmer, which is kind of how the part's written, so I think the guy's doing great.
I mean all in all, it's not like amazing and it's not gonna change TV, but I don't think that's probably the point. My girlfriend watches Hot In Cleveland, which I kind of sit through, but then this comes on and I've got no problem watching it before we go to bed.
If it keeps going in the direction it's headed, I think it could go from being pretty good to just plain good. We'll see.
