The Millers

Occasionally, you find a show that takes a while to find its groove, like Scrubs. The Millers seems to think it has found it from the start. The talented cast seems ready and willing to dive headfirst into the roles with abandon, herein lies the big problem.

Almost everything here is so overblown that it is almost reaches farce level. Kinda like watching Scrubs, sans the whimsy, and the charm and the clever banter and smart humor and the likable characters. If the 1980 cult turd Flash Gordon was to be serialized, it would be and apt comparison to the tone of this mess.

Lets be honest, when Will Arnett is the actor showing the most restraint you either have a horrible idea or have no directorial control over the cast. Director Kevin Smith once mused that he was not strong enough to control Ben Affleck during the making if Dogma. The Millers leave you with similar feelings.

Will Arnett may have finally struck gold with this comedy. He plays Nathan Miller, newly divorced reporter, in an unspecified East Coast city. His parents are played by Emmy winners Beau Bridges and Margo Martindale who is a scene stealer. His parents have split after 43 years of marriage. His father is a klutzy mess who manages to cause messes like a child. He moves into their previous home who is being rented out to his daughter and son-in-law. Nathan gets momma at his place. She can be too much too handle at times. She is bossy and interferes in her son's life. She is also so lonely that the viewers see through the facade. The show was created by Greg Garcia who has created "Raising Hope" and "My Name is Earl" sitcoms. He really grasps family dysfunction into comedy. Hope this show lasts a long time and will with cast and crew.

Out of all the new shows that were debuting this season, this was one of the ones I had mixed reactions about. The cast sounds incredible. With the talents of people like Will Arnett, Margo Martindale, Beau Bridges, JB Smoove and Jayma Mays, it sounds like they would have great chemistry. Also, Greg Garcia is the creator of the one of the most underrated shows right now Raising Hope, which I also had mixed reactions toward before watching it, and it turned out be one of my favorite shows from 2010. The premise sounded really generic and the jokes sounded really lame from the preview. But that was the least of my problems.

This show really wasn't that good. It wasn't all that funny. Fart jokes are not funny anymore...oh wait...EVER! As for the cast, they're all being underused. Will Arnett wasn't funny, Margo Martindale was annoying, Jayma Mays was boring, JB Smoove wasn't funny either and Beau Bridges just annoyed me almost as much as Margo. The writers think by having her character as a chatty person and Beau Bridges's character as a total idiot is funny. However, they use lame jokes that we've seen over and over and over again and we'll probably continue to see them in the next few years. I haven't gotten to my biggest problem with this show.

The laugh track, is so damn annoying. They use the laugh track like every two seconds. They use it for situations that are not even funny. My love of laugh track sitcoms are dying and they're dying fast.

My biggest question with this show is why did it get paired up after The Big Bang Theory? The Big Bang Theory is probably the last laugh track sitcom that I still like, but CBS picked the wrong show to put on after it. The Crazy Ones and Mom are better than this and one of those shows should be on after The Big Bang Theory, not this generic and repetitive garbage.

So in the end, if you liked the preview, you'll like the show. If you didn't like the preview, you won't like the show. The cast is incredibly underused and I hope this show can get better from the pilot at least.

I was really looking forward to this show because of the great cast, but it just didn't seemed to catch on with the the first couple of episodes so I supposed it might get cancelled. After the holidays I gave it another chance and in the last couple of weeks and I saw two episodes worth watching. With the focus off the mom/dad haranguing, I saw a sitcom with scenes and line deliveries which kept me laughing. One of the episodes involved the sister's hidden diary, but I thought better of tonight's episode about Nathan stealing his mother's rants to fuel his own TV segments. It certainly had some real belly laughs. Lately it seems the pacing and use of the supporting cast is improved. No hamming or mugging from anyone, just enough well timed involvement to keep the laughs coming. It is easy to see the cast is loaded with talent and let's hope the scripts are worthy of them.

Nathan Miller (Will Arnett) is a self-obsessed local TV reporter who is shocked by his parents Carol (Margo Martindale) and Tom (Beau Bridges) announcing that they're getting divorced. Now his parents split up to live separately with him, and his sister Debbie (Jayma Mays) and her husband Adam (Nelson Franklin) and her daughter Mikayla (Lulu Wilson). Nathan is best friend to his cameraman Ray (J.B. Smoove).

This started awkwardly with the parents splitting up. It's just more annoying than funny. The show is better off to start off after the split. Also for a separating couple, the family keeps hanging out together. The family does grow on me. I love Martindale and she's terrific as the bossy matriarch. The old couple's constant fighting fades more to the background. It is a little uneven. There are some likable laughs. The awkwardness starts to fade. Then the second season tries to bring in Sean Hayes to do a bad recurring role. It's one more mistake that the show doesn't need.