La guerre à la maison

I have been waiting for the premiere of this show for weeks, and I am more than pleased. I was highly entertained. While it is very true that the "dysfunctional family" premise has been done before, it is still a highly entertaining premise, which is why it has been successful for so very long and never gone stale. The "cutaways" are very reminiscent of Titus, the comedic timing is excellent, the cast is wonderful. I have never been a huge Michael Rapaport fan, but I have always respected his talent as an actor. But I never knew he was funny. I have no complaints, I was 100% impressed and entertained. I can't wait for the next episode. This show has enormous potential, and I am excited to see what is done with it. Hopefully Fox will realize what they have and not add it to the graveyard of so many other shows they canceled way before their time.

This show is actually pretty good. Like all shows on TV, it has its good episodes and its bad ones.

I have read where people compare this show to Married with Children, and I suppose it is a similar show for the new generation. However, because of what was expected and allowed on TV in the days of Married with Children, that show was taken to great extremes to show that it was in fact, a television show, and not meant to be take seriously.

The War at Home has the luxury of being a bit more realistic. The parents talk to each other like real life parents often do, telling their children one thing, when they will turn around and do the opposite.

Sure, some of the content can be considered controversial. But I find this show really tries to maintain a sense of honesty. Like it or not, there are a lot of families out there just like this one.

Every episode does teach a 'valuable lesson'. Its just that sometimes the lesson is that you will not find a perfect solution for every problem that a family may encounter, and sometimes the solution is to pick the lesser of two evils. We all know that in some cases, as a parent, the only goal you can have is to keep your kids out of really big trouble, and hope that they learn right from wrong.

I respect the writers for attempting to keep the show true to life, instead of having some magical ending like the Cleaver family always had.

The humor in this show is actually not too bad. Many of the jokes are a little homophobic or racist, ala 'All in the family', and too often the actors talk to each other as if they were on stage, and for the love of god they need to ditch that cheesy laugh track...What was I saying? Oh yea, despite all that I actually found myself laughing out loud at several points. The humor is a mix of the 'All in the Fmaily' style generation gap stuff and 'Threes Company' style misheard conversations and situations. Like I said, some will find the sexuality or race based humor offensive, but if you aren't afraid of a few un-PC jokes then you might find yourself chuckling. Currently the show is a 5 out of 10 at best, but has a lot of promise. With some smart stewardship, it could be one of the better new sitcoms this season.

I knew I was in trouble when the laugh track began crackling before the first character even completed a sentence. The writers of this show think they're pushing the prime time sitcom envelope by having the dad say "penis," the mom visualize herself having sex in the backseat of a car with an African American teenager, a son dress up like a woman, and a daughter pretend to date a black boy in order to shock the folks. The trouble is, without a good, solid story, these things just aren't funny (unless you're eight years old and giggle when you hear a grown up say the name of a private body part).

What's meant to be shocking is instead just plain boring, not to mention in bad taste. It doesn't help that the actors, particular Michael Rappaport, are horribly miscast and appear to be genuinely uncomfortable playing their parts.

This embarrassment of a program should be renamed "The Bore at Home." If the execs at Fox have any business sense, they'll shove this mess down the disposal immediately.

Like many situation comedies, "The War at Home" is getting better with each episode. The characters are starting to become real and I believe them as a family. I agree with many that the first few episodes were not that funny; I thought the show would be canceled for sure. But with the absences of "Malcolm in the Middle" and "Arrested Development," "War" provides much needed live action comedy for FOX on Sunday nights. And when compared with the rest of the sitcoms airing right now "War" is an even better choice.

Its appeal, at least for me, lies in its real situations. Teenagers have sex. Not every parent likes how their kids are turning out. Parents fight and call each other names. But rather than relying on being "mean" like many shows, everything is nice in the end which is the number one rule of a good sitcom.

One detraction from the show is the narration during/in between scenes. The "Arrested Development/Family Guy" style of flashbacks work well enough but the narration can be too much.

So anyone who needs something to watch on Sunday nights should check out "The War at Home," especially considering what is on the other major networks at that time.