All skeletons look alike.
I think a downfall of any show is when the episodes become predictable, and that’s just what happened this week on a Halloween-themed episode of Last Man Standing.
Mike becomes upset when his youngest daughter Eve decides that she’s going to break away from tradition and not dress-up to go trick-or-treating with him. All is not lost though, he decides to take his grandson Boyd out for a night of fun and candy dressed as a skeleton. But, there’s a hiccup in that plan. Kristin feels that Boyd is too young to be exposed to the ghouls and goblins of Halloween. Who is Mike to listen though? (The foreshadowing is so strong here that you know some sort of mix-up is going to occur.) So, Mike dressed as a green beret takes Boyd out to show off how cute he is in his costume and returns home with him sometime later; of course when he removes Boyd’s mask though it’s not Boyd.
Seriously, they couldn’t have come up with a more original idea for a Halloween episode? I think my problem with the concept is that nowhere in the episode do we see where this mix-up could have occurred. Mike takes Boyd out, stops by his boss’ house (where Elvira makes a cameo appearance) and then returns home. Luckily they know the child that Mike did return home with and are able to switch the kids without a problem, but not before Kristin discovering what happened. Of course she forgives him and they all decide to go to trick-or-treating together. What else would you expect from a wholesome family comedy? The show reminds me of those that were part of the popular TGIF comedy block that ABC touted back in the 1990’s.
One thing that was humorous about this episode was Mike’s wife Vanessa deciding to dress up in an age-inappropriate pirate princess costume that attracted the attention of their neighbor Bill. He continuously found a reason to return to their house just so he could look at her. He even comes back late at night to sing a song for her and she answers the door in a robe and he is obviously disappointed that Halloween is indeed over at the Baxter house. Vanessa’s pirate princess costume was also able to calm the anger that Mr. Wong felt over Mike accidentally taking his child instead of Boyd.
Something that is becoming more evident with each episode is the similarity in the character of Mike to that of Tim Allen’s Tim from Home Improvement. Not to say that his acting is bad, but, he’s just playing a more updated version of that character now with three girls instead of boys and his tool obsession has now become an obsession with outdoor toys, i.e. hunting.
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.