Père malgré tout

This show was terrible! I don't know why it was even aired. It is an example of how some new tv shows are seriously declining in quality. When I heard it was cancelled I was relieved that there is room for a possibly good quality tv show.

Strangely, this series tried too hard and not hard enough at the same time: too hard by trying to assemble yet another quirky cast of youngish actors in yet another communal living situation, and not hard enough because the writing and performances were positively excruciating. Maybe with good material the cast would have come across better, but I doubt it, given the rarity with which any one of them exhibited any kind of talent for comic delivery or any ability to make their characters likable. Yet another failure from the network (ABC) that tried to replace "Sports Night" with "Talk to Me" and now shows the soon-to-be-short-lived "Geena Davis Show" in that same time slot. At least they came to their senses about this particular series that should never have made it past the script stage.

It is three men and a dog in Brooklyn. They are best friends and former college roommates. Womanizing Hunter Franklin (Stephen Dunham) can't remember the girls' names. Norris Michelsky (David Alan Basche) is newly gay and divorcing Suzanne Vandermeer (Rena Sofer). Ford Lowell (John Ducey) is a struggling artist. Out of the blue, Hunter's 18 year old daughter Chloe Sheffield (Niesha Trout) shows up and he didn't know that she even existed. She is a film student starting NYU.

This is Alan Ball around the time of American Beauty. These are two opposite sides of Alan Ball's career. Before this, he's been involved with a couple of successful shows. This one feels like a variation on the Three Men and A Baby franchise except the three men are played by second tier stars. I don't want to be mean, but the biggest star on the cast is Rena Sofer. The writing is functional network sitcom material. It feels slap-dashed like maybe Alan is doing something more important elsewhere. I must have seen the show back in the day. A couple of lines in the pilot sound familiar, but I literally remember nothing else. There is nothing that great to remember. This is functional.

One of the best new shows of the season, so far I've found only the episode of 12/28/99 disappointing. The show is loaded with silliness and an ensemble cast with great comic timing, but it really develops as you get into it. The relationship that develops between Hunter and his newly-discovered daughter Chloe is the heart as well as the edge of the show. Each character has a great deal of maturing to do, and the comedy comes as much from their immaturity as from how frequently the viewer is encouraged to look down upon them and see the room for growth, and unlike Archie Bunker, always back to the same as each new episode starts, the characters seem to gradually improve from episode to episode. Except for Suzanne, she seems to get worse as episodes go on. She came across as the most mature with the first episode, and the show parallels her degeneration, or its revelation of how immature she is, further and further as Hunter tries to be a better father for Chloe. This show isn't likely to make it through the entire season, which is unfortunate. Alan Ball has created a comedy about more than just silly antics. While that isn't new, it is certainly handled in a unique, refreshing, and funny way.

1999 was a pretty great year for writer Alan Ball. That was the year his script for "American Beauty" made it into theaters as a feature film. It went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Mr. Ball, as well as Best Picutre, Best Director for Sam Mendes and Best Actor for Kevin Spacey.

Five days after "American Beauty" had its release in theaters, this show debuted. Ball created "Oh Grow Up" based on his one act production, titled "Bachelor's Holiday" which is the story of three housemates who caught a mouse in a glue trap and start to reflect upon the existential elements of life and meaning because of it.

Here, no mice, despite the ABC Television Network, which got taken over by Disney a couple of years before. But we do have 3 housemates, all former classmates at the same University, who are all coming to some life-changing revelations.

There's artist Norris (David Alan Basche) who is making a serious effort to transform his career as a painter into a success. There's Hunter (Stephen Dunham) who runs a construction business and who is an artist in his own right - with the ladies. And there's Ford (John Ducey) who realized he was gay and needed to split from his wife Suzanne (Rena Sofer), though they both still love and care for each other. He has just moved in with Norris and Hunter, so it's a college throwback for all of them as they negotiate their world in Williamsburg and what awaits them.

Hunter's dog is named Mom (Hunter had some issues), and Mom (Beans) frequently barked at the events going on, which is translated for the viewers using Dog to English subtitles. Some of these are the funniest lines of an episode.

But the most challenging element comes in the series pilot, when Hunter meets a cute eighteen year old named Chloe (Niesha Trout) who just happens to be his daughter. Suddenly the playa is an instant dad.

Of course, complications arise, as Hunter had a one night stand with Chloe's roommate (it could have been worse...) and the roommates try to outdo each other in what can only be called the Brooklyn Olympics. Competition becomes the lives of these guys, which is just another way to avoid reality, if we're being honest here. And Hunter's relationship with Chloe alternates between sweet and thoughtful and cringey and painful as her childhood memories of not having a father around create more than a few hilariously difficult moments.

New York plays a part because of the Art Gallery Scene, the continual need for construction work, the LGBTQ community and the Dog Runs, giving everyone in the cast a moment in the spotlight.

There is a lot of both good natured and mean spirited comedy throughout the series and the show is a lot smarter than the concepts that introduced it.

But we are talking about Alan Ball, who would go on to create "Six Feet Under" a couple of years later, which, I guess, throws this into that category of shows that got canceled so something better could happen. In addition to freeing up Mr. Ball to create his masterwork series, it made room on the schedule for the phenomenon that was to become "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?"