Growing Up Fisher

Horrible. This is the Golden Age of television (in Cable), but the networks are blind and atrociously obtuse to the opportunities that are given to them every day and which they consistently reject for bland shows that don't take any risks and, because of this, are doomed for cancellation. As more people turn to cable and experience (finally) great television, the networks' shows (especially the comedies) will suffer. "Growing Up Fisher" is a perfect example. The idea of the show is great, but the execution is deeply disappointing. Everything is dumbed down, the jokes feel forced, the narration is ridiculous! If this is really about the creator's childhood, he did an excellent job to skirt any pain, for pain in comedy is always what works best. I love television and hope lackluster shows like these disappear to make room for better creators and writers, and also complicated characters that let actors really act.

The story is told from Henry Fisher's (Eli Baker) point of view. It uses the same grown-up main character narrating his (pre) adolescence in voice-over technique as The Wonder Years. Of course, this show is not as brilliantly inspired as Wonder Years, but it would be unfair to judge a new TV show by such high standards. Eli Baker has a lot of boyish charm and does a convincing job.

Nowadays, it feels a bit old fashioned to have a traditional family sitcom. It's true that the parents are divorced, but they have such a good relationship that there's not such a large difference.

Any new show needs a differentiating element, and here the Mel's (J.K. Simmons, playing the father) blindness plays that role.

One problem is that, for a comedy, Growing Up Fisher is not very funny. A lot of jokes are made from Mel's blindness and how he doesn't let that keep him from any activity. Some of those are enjoyable, but that premise only takes us so far.

Another problem is that it relies too much on clichés. Henry starts awkwardly noticing girls, which is a reasonable plot point for a protagonist this age but one we have often seen. Joyce (Jenna Elfman), his mother, has gone back to the university and is obsessed about being cool and being friends with the other students and with her teenage daughter and her friends. There's nothing wrong with her interpretation, but beyond this not too promising plot element she is not given much to work with. The same can be said about Katie (Ava Deluca-Verley), who plays Henry's older sister. She does fine, but is not given much to do. Henry's best friend Runyen (Lance Lim), is an Asian mouthy kid who also feels like a sitcom cliché.

The show is at his best with heart-warming family lessons, like when Katie stands up for his father when he is almost expelled from a musical where she is starring because his guide dog started barking. This came after Mel had told her that he was so obnoxious and outspoken because when he was a teen his rowing coach had not liked having a blind kid in the team and had asked him to leave. Mel had left and he had always regretted it. Katie standing up for him in spite of being mad at him for spoiling her date was a nice moment. I fear that in our cynic times such simple feel-good messages are seen as too corny.

It's a pity this show was cancelled so soon. I enjoyed it and felt that it had potential to grow beyond the clichés that were holding it back. Unfortunately, we won't have the opportunity to see whether that's the case.

I'm giving this 2 more stars than I probably should, simply because when this show hits the mark there's nothing else like it. It's too bad it didn't run for more than 13 episodes; then again I can see why it failed to find a large audience - or even consistently appeal to the audience that it found.

JK Simmons has an incredible amount of charisma, even though he doesn't have the classic "pretty boy" good looks of a lot of male stars. He makes the most of it here. All of the actors are very good, especially the one who plays the son (i.e. He's supposed to be the narrator).

Although the series starts out with the blind attorney doing amazing things - most people don't even realize he's blind - they somewhat drop or reduce this premise as the series moves along. I wish they'd stayed with it. Sure it wasn't entirely realistic, but it's a comedy.

In fact, a lack of continuity is a big problem in the show. At the end of the first episode, Mel Fisher says he's going to build a pool for his family, but there's no follow-up of building the pool in later episodes. And as I mentioned, his "superpower" of being aware of things around him despite being blind seems to diminish a bit over the episodes. He meets an attractive female neighbor at one point, they seem to hit it off, but then she's gone for a few episodes. They may have had multiple writers for this show, but they should have at least had an overall guide to keep things more consistent. Maybe the show was rushed into production.

I disagree with a couple of comments regarding Jenna Elfman's character being too young to believably be married to Fisher (Simmons). Simmons was 59 at the time, Elfman was 42, sure that's a big gap. And presumably they married at ages 40 and 23, something like that (based on the daughter's age). But when you realize that Elfman's character is flighty and unsure of herself, it becomes more believable that she'd marry the charismatic and wise older man for stability.

You could even go a step further and imagine that since she's a very attractive woman, she had gotten a lot of attention from men just for her looks. With Mel being blind, she got attention simply for her personality, which may have been important for her at that point in her life.

It's also more believable that she'd divorce him, with her flighty personality and now that she's become middle aged (but now with a man pushing 60, despite his still-strong charisma). And yes, maybe Elfman looks younger than 42, while Simmons looks fully 59, but when you know the actors true ages and understand the characters, it makes sense well enough to enjoy.

Bottom line, this series was great in concept, but ultimately fell apart due to some weak scripts along the way. As well as a lot of inconsistency. Not entirely a missed opportunity though; this show is very rewarding in its own right, it's just that it could have been incredible. Definitely worth a look if you are considering it.

We were pleased to see that NBC has tried a couple of new family centered series of which this is one and the other being About A Boy.

We think the star in this series will turn out to be young Henry (Eli Baker). He is a fresh young talent and we think he has great potential.

J.K. Simmons as Mel Fisher the Dad is an enjoyable character. It was especially nice to see how Henry listens to everything Dad says and there are many large underlying "teachable moments" in this first episode. Mel is a good Dad.

Jenna Elfman is someone we enjoy seeing anytime, and here in her role as Joyce she was true to type.

We enjoyed this episode and will tune in again next week.

Growing Up Fisher and About A Boy are a welcome relief from watching NCIS Los Angeles on that other network. That means it fills a time slot where the market is hungry for something new and in this case NBC did it.

Keep up the good work and we may tune in to NBC for more than Grimm.

Mel Fisher (J.K. Simmons) is a blind lawyer who often tries to pass. He is divorcing his wife Joyce (Jenna Elfman). Their kids Henry (Eli Baker) and Katie (Ava Deluca-Verley) have to deal with the divorce and their unique family. The show also gets into Henry's best friend Runyen (Lance Lim).

This show started awkwardly with blind Mel passing for seeing. It's filled with stories from writer's life with his blind dad. Even though it may be real, it just sounds fake without being funny. Then there is Jenna Elfman. I don't want to be mean but she's too young and hot for Simmons. I love the guy but Jenna looks 30s even although she's in her 40s. Also the divorce is possibly the nicest one around. It feels like a lot of rough edges got rounded out. The kids are fine and the best character has to be the best friend Runyen. He's the funniest one in the whole cast. This is a functional network TV family sitcom. It's a mid season replacement show that got canceled after its half season run.