Extended Family

Emmy award winner Jon Cryer is back in a sitcom role as a divorcing father, Jim Kearney, of two in Boston, Massachusetts. Lenny Clarke plays his character's father on a recurring role. Donald Faison plays, Trey, who also owns the Boston Celtics, the popular professional basketball team. Trey becomes his ex-wife's fiance. The kids get along with the new arrangement. The parents are co-parenting in the contemporary age. Boston is a great city to set a sitcom too. The cast is good but could be better. I have seen almost all of the first eight episodes. I would prefer to see more slapstick humor or even physical humor in the show. We need to see more sitcoms. The art of comedy is a lot harder than drama anyway. Jon Cryer and the cast are doing their best with what they have.

Extended Family had a rough start. I won't deny it. But its first season has improved with each episode. Yes - there are come cliches to the story. But I think the creatives took the criticisms of the early episodes and have worked to make it better.

This is what streaming CAN'T do. Let shows grow and improve week by week. With streaming you need a good first season from beginning to end because of it dropping at once. I know some streaming shows do week to week release but they film the season all at once. While that can work for some shows particularly at HBO, it doesn't work for mainstream streaming.

Linear TV is important.

From the corny deliveries to the spoon-fed laugh track, this show is clearly not a winner. But hey, they cant all be winners. That's what pilot season is for. But this one most likely won't make it past its first season. Great actors for sure, but this comedy format doesn't play to their strengths very well.

Jon Cryer needs to leave silly sitcoms for a while so audiences don't immediately see Alan Harper of "Two and a Half Men". He played that role for so long, that the only way for audiences to disassociate from that character is if he came out 100% a different character. But another wimpy dad role? C'mon. They had to know that was a bad call.

I've always been an Abigail Spencer fan, and she has surprisingly good timing for sitcom-style comedy.

Donald Faison was perfect for Scrubs, so it's hard to accept him at anything less than that.

Lenny Clarke is too much. And not in a good way. Loud, frying-pan-over-the-head delivery on his jokes. It's sort of his style, but it doesn't fit here.

The most remarkable thing about this show is Jon Cryer is cast as a largely unwanted house guest, who is eccentric, shameless, and who gets laughs while trying and failing to fit in.

This is in sharp contrast to his previous role as Alan Harper in "Two and a half men", where he played a largely unwanted house resident who is eccentric, shameless, and who gets laughs while trying and failing to fit in.

At this point I would like to see another "Odd Couple" remake starring Jon Cryer, where he plays both lead characters. Because this role would be the perfect career trifecta for Jon Cryer to finish with.

I had high hopes for this show. I liked all of the principal actors in other shows, and the premise seemed original. But, as with he new "Frasier", the laugh track is tired and trite.

Someone, somewhere thinks that if they throw in a bunch of laughs, giggles and gasps, it will make their bad show worth watching. I have a tip: if it's not funny in the first place, a laugh track won't change anyone's perception of the show.

And now, to make up the required character count, I will create the IMDB "character track" for your amusement. Try not to laugh! Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.