Surviving Jack
04-24-2014
, 11:07 PM
New comedy on Fox, airs Thursdays at 9:30, getting propped up by the American Idol results show lead-in. First episode was around end of March 2014.
Eliot Stabler stars as the tough but hilarious dad who invents a time machine and takes his family back to 1991 for some dumb reason.
Awkward Fred Savage stars as the son who gets to narrate parts of the story.
The woman you recognize from a bunch of stuff probably but you can't quite place her as the mom.
Kelly Bundy as the daughter.
Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite stars as Token and Generic 90s Kid plays himself.
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This show is competing for the second best comedy to debut this year, after Brooklyn 99. Mom is solid in her role. Son needs to get better. Daughter is currently too much of a caricature. Friends are below average but sufficient. But Dad is fantastic. He will hold the show together by himself.
Liabilities - 90s jokes. I don't know why they decided to set the show in the early 90s instead of today. The overwhelming majority of 90s jokes are horrible, corny, and just feel out of place as if they wrote the episode normal, then went in afterwards and said, "ok, so we need to add 8 time period jokes per episode, where can we fit them in." If they can ever make these more natural, show will have a much greater chance at success.
Overall - absolutely worth a watch because Stabler is hilarious throughout. If a few side characters can up their game and the 90s jokes get better integrated into the flow, there is decent potential here.
Eliot Stabler stars as the tough but hilarious dad who invents a time machine and takes his family back to 1991 for some dumb reason.
Awkward Fred Savage stars as the son who gets to narrate parts of the story.
The woman you recognize from a bunch of stuff probably but you can't quite place her as the mom.
Kelly Bundy as the daughter.
Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite stars as Token and Generic 90s Kid plays himself.
--
This show is competing for the second best comedy to debut this year, after Brooklyn 99. Mom is solid in her role. Son needs to get better. Daughter is currently too much of a caricature. Friends are below average but sufficient. But Dad is fantastic. He will hold the show together by himself.
Liabilities - 90s jokes. I don't know why they decided to set the show in the early 90s instead of today. The overwhelming majority of 90s jokes are horrible, corny, and just feel out of place as if they wrote the episode normal, then went in afterwards and said, "ok, so we need to add 8 time period jokes per episode, where can we fit them in." If they can ever make these more natural, show will have a much greater chance at success.
Overall - absolutely worth a watch because Stabler is hilarious throughout. If a few side characters can up their game and the 90s jokes get better integrated into the flow, there is decent potential here.
