In the US: Tuesdays, 8/7c, ABC
Today, I am feeling charitable. Here we have Last Man Standing (not to be confused with Last Man Standing), Tim Allen’s return to sitcoms, in which he finds himself out of work and his wife getting a promotion, so finds himself having to stay at home to look after the kids and the house. His character is a clueless embodiment of patriarchy and “manliness”, a man’s man who loves rooms that “smell like balls” and thinks men should only dance when people are shooting at their feet, who has no idea what Glee is, and takes babies to Blowdart and Shotgun emporia. It’s also a single camera comedy with an annoying laughter track and no fewer than five nuclear power stations flooding every set with over-lighting.
Normally, I would hate it and hit it with bricks.
And I do still largely hate it, because it’s barely in any way funny, largely trying to get by on obvious and offensive one-liners that really should be shot at and forced to dance.
But instead, I’m going to be charitable and claim it’s educational. Yes, educational. It may suck, but like all the new multi-camera comedies this season that are virtually laugh-free (e.g. 2 Broke Girls, Whitney), lots of Americans are watching it (13m in this case) and the kinds of people who are watching it probably need to know what a vlog is, understand that throwing giant fish they’ve just caught onto their children’s homework is bad, and need to know that it’s okay for men to stay at home and look after the kids.
Isn’t that nice of the producers – and me?
Here’s a trailer.
