Parenthood - Pilot

Network: NBC
Time: Tuesdays, 10:00-11:00pm
Cast: Lauren Graham, Peter Krause, Craig T. Nelson, Dax Shepard, Erika Christensen, Bonnie Bedelia, Monica Potter, Sam Jaeger, Joy Bryant, Mae Whitman, Sarah Ramos, Miles Heizer, Max Burkholder, Savannah Paige Rae

Summary: A divorced mother of two moves back in with her parents, while her siblings deal with family issues of their own.

Review:  I like pilot episodes.  You go in so unprepared.  I mean, sure, you've seen commercials, but they never tell you exactly what to expect.  In the case of Parenthood, those commercials go in two different ways: the funny and the sweet.  So you're a completely blank slate going into the first episode to enthrall or disappoint.

This was a bit of a disappointment.  My expectations were high due to the writing/directing team (Ron Howard and Thomas Schlamme) and the wonderful cast (see above), and they didn't exactly fail to live up to them.  It's just that I expected the show to be funnier than it was.  I'd been watching those commercials all through the Olympics, and a large percentage of them made the show out to be a comedy.  In reality, it was a slightly predictable family drama.

And it wasn't bad.  Like I said, the acting was wonderful, and the sweet moments really were sweet.  It was just too much sometimes.  It tried to be a dramatic version of Modern Family.  One of the great things about MF is that all the families have their own stories, and they intermingle periodically.  Parenthood tried to do the same thing, but it didn't work as well.  In a comedy, the stories are light-hearted and simple.  In a drama, they're far more complex, and it's harder to work several complex stories into the same episode, which is what Parenthood did.  The end result was that I didn't care enough about some of the stories that should have had a bigger impact.

That said, I think this show has a lot of potential, even if I still want it to be funnier (think Gilmore Girls, or even The West Wing).  If each episode focused on one or (maybe) two problems at a time, the audience could focus on and care about those issues better.  Also, further character development will aid in making the audience empathize with the characters' struggles as well (that obviously can only happen with time). 

If I hadn't had any expectations going in, I probably would have enjoyed this pilot more.  And I really did enjoy it, even if I'm coming down on it kind of hard.  It's just that I expected more from the people who put it together, because they've also been responsible for some of my favorite television throughout the years.  But I look forward to watching for awhile and seeing what will come of this highly anticipated show.

Favorite lines:
Kristina: Men feel the need to express their love through hitting balls, slapping butts and discussing meaningless statistics.

Crosby: Let's just play ping pong, so I can lose myself in sport.

Rating:
[5] Excellent
[4] Good
[3] Average
[2] OK
[1] Bad