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Eric Mccandless/ABCTroy Gentile, left, and Jeff Garlin as an ’80s son and father in the new comedy “The Goldbergs.”
Children Examine Fathers, and They See Trouble
‘Goldbergs,’ ‘Back in the Game,’ ‘Crazy Ones’ Make Debuts
By ALESSANDRA STANLEY
Published: September 24, 2013
Children are so ungrateful.
A sortable calendar of noteworthy cultural events in the New York region, selected by Times critics.
Randy Holmes/ABC
Maggie Lawson and James Caan in “Back in the Game,” in which daughter and father bond over youth baseball.
Richard Cartwright/CBS
Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar, playing his daughter and business partner, in “The Crazy Ones.”
It’s almost impossible to be a good parent anymore — offspring, once grown, seem to have an endless appetite for reproach. An alarming number of new TV comedies this season focus on the strain that annoying parents put on their resentful progeny. Children are never satisfied: a neglectful father ruins his child’s self-worth and ability to trust; a doting, successful father is impossible to live up to.
Those axioms are the basis of two comedies that begin this week: “Back in the Game” and “The Crazy Ones,” both father-daughter sitcoms that act out the discontents of Generation Xers who “journal” and use “parenting” as a verb.
“The Goldbergs,” which began Tuesday on ABC, is the counterpoint: It’s a nostalgic look back at a simpler time long ago — the 1980s — when, as the narrator puts it, “there were no parenting blogs or peanut allergies, just a whole lot of crazy.”
It would be great if “The Goldbergs” were the wittier show of the three — Jeff Garlin (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”) plays the kind of dad who hollers, tells his children they are morons and proudly gives his middle son an REO Speedwagon tape for his birthday, which his son, who favors Flavor Flav, takes as an insult.
But the characters and mishaps on “The Goldbergs” are predicable, and the writing isn’t clever enough to overcome clichés: the pushy, overbearing mother; the sulky teenage son who wants his driver’s license; the popular older sister who finds her brothers unbearable. George Segal plays the roguish grandpa who helps the children get around parents who don’t understand them.
“The Goldbergs” mostly serves as a contradiction to the rule that writers should draw on what they know. Like “The Wonder Years,” this is a coming-of-age comedy told in the first person. The show’s creator, Adam F. Goldberg, modeled it so closely on his own childhood that his family photos are next to shots of the actors at the end of the pilot. The entire episode feels like a home movie that a dinner host insists on showing his guests — it’s only funny to those in it.
“Back in the Game,” an ABC show that begins on Wednesday, has a better start, even if it’s not all that inventive, either. The show puts the kind of father-daughter conflict that Clint Eastwood and Amy Adams explored in the movie “Trouble With the Curve” into a “Bad News Bears” setting. Terry (Maggie Lawson), a single mother, is broke and has to move in with her crabby, estranged father, who is also called Terry but goes by “the Cannon” and is played by James Caan.
Terry is bitter about her tough childhood — her father was a minor league coach who left her with relatives after her mother died. To please him, she became a college all-star softball player and still resents that she never saw the Cannon at any of her games. Their relationship is tense, but after Terry volunteers to coach her son’s losing baseball team, she needs her father’s help.
The family conflicts are facile and easily resolved on “Back in the Game,” but Terry is an appealing heroine, and she has an amusing new best friend, Lulu (Lenora Crichlow), a rich widow, and an appalling new enemy, Dick (Ben Koldyke), a rival coach with an ego as big as a baseball diamond.
“The Crazy Ones” is a CBS show that begins on Thursday and features a heroine, Sydney (Sarah Michelle Gellar), who cannot complain that her successful, doting father doesn’t take care of her. Robin Williams plays her father, Simon Roberts, a senior partner at a big-time advertising firm who brought Sydney into the business and made her a partner. When Simon improvises a pitch to Coca-Cola, Sydney reminds him that she is his business partner by noting that the company is called Lewis, Roberts & Roberts. Her father replies: “Really? I thought that was my name twice.”
Simon adores his cautious, conscientious daughter, but he communes better with a dashing, confident protégé, Zach, played by James Wolk (Bob Benson on “Mad Men”), who shares Simon’s high spirits and recklessness.
The filial dynamic is similar to the father-daughter mismatch in “Just Shoot Me,” a ’90s show that starred Mr. Segal. Sydney is as much a scolding nanny as she is a collaborator. Simon is supposed to be a genuinely mad Mad Man, a childlike creative genius who delights in jokes, funny voices and inspired nonsense. And watching Mr. Williams return to the kind of improvisation-style routines that made him famous in the 1970s is bittersweet, like watching Jimmy Connors play tennis again: they are still impressive, but audiences can’t help recalling how much more elastic and powerful they were at their peak.
“Modern Family” became a hit by focusing on family units that are unconventional but harmonious and loving. “Back in the Game” and “The Crazy Ones” are sitcoms that seek the cracks in less modern but perhaps more commonplace kinfolk.
The Goldbergs
ABC, Tuesday nights at 9, Eastern and Pacific times; 8, Central time.
Produced by Happy Madison and Sony Pictures Television. Written by Adam F. Goldberg. Mr. Goldberg, Doug Robinson and Seth Gordon, executive producers.
WITH: Wendi McLendon-Covey (Beverly Goldberg), Patton Oswalt (adult Adam Goldberg), Sean Giambrone (Adam Goldberg), Troy Gentile (Barry Goldberg), Hayley Orrantia (Erica Goldberg), George Segal (Pops Solomon) and Jeff Garlin (Murray Goldberg).
Back in the Game
ABC, Wednesday nights at 8:30, Eastern and Pacific times; 7:30, Central time.
Produced by 20th Century Fox Television and Kapital Entertainment. Written by Mark and Robb Cullen. Mark and Robb Cullen, John Requa, Glenn Ficarra and Aaron Kaplan, executive producers.
WITH: James Caan (Terry “the Cannon” Gannon Sr.), Maggie Lawson (Terry Gannon Jr.), / Ben Koldyke (Dick Slingbaugh), Griffin Gluck (Danny Gannon), Lenora Crichlow (Lulu Lovette), J J Totah (Michael Lovette), Kennedy Waite (Vanessa Leeds), Cooper Roth (David Slingbaugh) and Brandon Salgado (Dudley Douglas).
The Crazy Ones
CBS, Thursday nights at 9, Eastern and Pacific times; 8, Central time.
Produced by 20th Century Fox Television. David E. Kelley, Bill D’Elia, Jason Winer, Tracy Poust, Jon Kinnally, Dean Lorey, John Montgomery and Mark Teitelbaum, executive producers
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