TV reviews

In the US: Wednesdays, 8.30/7.30c, ABC. Starts September 21

In the past few years, ABC – already the home of a considerable amount of female-oriented programming – has been doing its best to diversify its diversity, through shows such as black-ish, Quantico, Fresh Off The Boat and Cristela. With Speechless, it’s now trying its hand at disabilities.

Minnie Driver, forever consigned these days to the role of ‘spunky mum’ (cf About A Boy), is a spunky mother of three kids, one of whom (Micah Fowler) has cerebral palsy, is wheelchair-bound and can only communicate with an assistive device. Forever spunky, Driver spunkily drags her family from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, new house to new house and school to school, in an effort to find the perfect location for her differently abled son – a location that might offer a full-time assistant who can act as her son’s ‘voice’.

Like Son of Zorn, it’s a high concept that sounds a bit awful on paper, but actually works much better in practice thanks to a diversity of diversity and a nuanced approach. While the show is happy to have Driver lecture everyone about correct language, the eventual ‘voice’ for her son (Cedric Yarbrough) is black and there’s a tension between him and Driver about whether being black is a bigger disadvantage than being disabled in the upmarket, virtually all-white neighbourhood in which Driver and family end up.

The school might want to celebrate diversity and achievement, particularly the ‘brave’ Fowler, but Fowler doesn’t think he’s actually done anything to be celebrated. Neither does the faculty know how to talk to him and the handicapped access ramp also doubles as the garbage ramp.

Meanwhile, the daughter of the family Driver is a keen athlete who’s fed up with everything being celebrated as being special, when she’d rather just win by being the best at something. Driver’s spunkiness is seen as being as much a problem for the family as it is an asset. On top of that, middle son just wants some attention, too, being tired of all the attention Fowler gets and the constant upheaval. 

Speechless has some obvious flaws and potential problems ahead of it. The father of the family (John Ross Bowie) is amusingly long-suffering and the show does its very level best to make him interesting in his own right. But Bowie doesn’t have a fraction of Driver’s presence or energy, and the character has no real desires of his own, making his presence almost superfluous to requirements. 

And as with black-ish, there’s going to come a point, probably quite soon, where the show runs out of ‘profound and important’ things to say about disability and diversity, and has to stand on the strength of its characters and situations. At the moment, I can’t quite see the show managing to do that, and it’ll likely very quickly revert to being any other family comedy.

All the same, a surprisingly good first episode that smartly addresses topical issues, and worth a try.

In the US: Sundays, Fox. Starts September 25

I don’t know exactly where Mattel and Filmation lie within the many concentric circles of giant US conglomerates’ IP assets, but if they’re not contained at least somewhere within Fox, I think the creators of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe have a good copyright infringement case on their hands with the arrival of Son of Zorn.

Zorn’s the guy in the picture above; He-Man is the guy in the 80s cartoon below.

Somewhat similar artistically, I think you’ll agree. 

However, that’s probably about the only similarity the two have in common, beyond an oddly similar array of friends, because Zorn owes a lot more to He-Man’s own inspiration, Conan the Barbarian, than to He-Man. He’s a macho, manly kind of guy who’ll only take orders from a woman if he believes she’s really a man.

That’s possibly why he ended up getting divorced and returning to his cartoon island nation to fight demons, giants, et al, while his wife (Cheryl Hines from Suburgatory and Curb Your Enthusiasm) headed off to Orange County, California, to raise their son, Alangulon, by herself. When Zorn returns to Orange County to see his now-teenage son and discovers that Hines is getting married to online professor of psychology Tim Meadows (Mean Girls), he decides to remain in Orange County as a detergent salesman so he can woo back his wife and become a father again.

Coming from Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Last Man on Earth, The Lego Movie), it’s unsurprising that this is a good deal funnier than you might expect – and you might be expecting Kröd Mändoon. While this is basically no different to any other culture clash or squabbling exes comedy – or even to Last Man Standing – with Zorn having to learn to be sensitive and fit in with modern American mores to have a relationship with his wife, it’s less about the format and more about the detail with Son of Zorn.

Zorn’s not just a huge dick with a huge sword, he’s a huge dick with a huge sword and access to death hawks. He’s also a ‘diversity hire’, barbarians from island nations being something of a rarity in California. Alan(gulon)’s a vegetarian and can flirt with the best of them, but he would be better with the girls if he had his own car… or death hawk. Hines’s character is trying to be responsible but is also someone who was happy to hang out with a barbarian and have sex with mountain trolls when she was younger. And Meadows’ character is hyper self-aware, particularly of the fact he’s a big disappointment in life and that Zorn is just big, giving an almost Ben Carson-like deadpan performance of oddness.

A lot of the jokes are obvious and you can usually see where everything’s going. But Son of Zorn keeps coming back with sufficiently out-there jokes that it doesn’t seem matter. Worth trying, at least for an episode or two.

In the US: Thursdays, 9pm ET, FX

As you get older, you become more reflective. You look back over your life and all the things that made you what you are and that took you to your current place in existence. Often, you’ll want to share your thoughts and ruminations with others, share those memories before they become like so many ‘tears in the rain’. 

Frequently, however, this is far more interesting for you than for anyone else, who probably have their own stories and memories they enjoy far more than yours.

Better Things is a semi-autobiographical piece written by and starring Pamela Adlon, co-written by Louis CK. Adlon isn’t a big name, unless you’re a fan of either Grease 2 or Louis, but she’s had a long career in show business, particularly in voice-over work. Indeed, you may recognise her voice more than her, since she won an Emmy for her performance as Bobby on King of the Hill.

Ever wanted to know what life is like for a 50-something single mother with three daughters, who’s the daughter of a TV producer and who’s an actress living in LA who goes to a lot of auditions and has to deliver a lot of bad dialogue in a lot of bad TV shows? I can’t say I feel a desperate need to know myself, but maybe you’re different, in which case Better Things will be a big help bridging that empathy gap.

Trouble is, it’s not saying an awful lot that you won’t have heard elsewhere. It’s tough being a single mom; it’s tough dating when you’re older; it’s tough having a teenage daughter; it’s tough being an older actress. And so on. These are known things. Even the ‘bad parenting’ jokes have been done to death this year alone, in movies such as Bad Moms and TV shows such as The Detour. Maybe we need reminding every so often, but I’m not sure a multi-part comedy series on FX is the best way to go about it.

All the same, there are good things in Better Things, although that’s more to do with some creative choices than the subject matter or anything especially interesting or funny that happens. Better Things isn’t always linear storytelling, with time jumps backwards and forwards, dream sequences, inter-titles, TV shows within TV shows, cameos by famous actors, either as themselves (Julie Bowen from Modern Family) or as characters (Bradley Whitford from The West Wing). The autobiographical elements give the show a specificity and an accuracy that it might not otherwise have had, too, and there’s some laughs to be had from Adlon’s voiceover work. 

Maybe if you’re facing similar issues, you’ll find this funny in a gallows humour kind of way. Personally, I found it just a little bit too self-involved, a bit too much a female Californication but without much joy.