A big family epic of some dramatic-comedic sort begins.
Peter Krause, who plays series lead Adam Braverman, starts off the series jogging… uh, is this Six Feet Under? Except it’s not. This character that Krause embodies is a family man, and a busy one at that. His sister Sarah (Lauren Graham) is calling about help dragging her daughter Amber (Mae Whitman) sneaking off to be with her boyfriend in the middle of a move, his wife Kristina (Monica Potter) is calling about trouble getting their son Max (Max Burkholder) to go to his baseball game (and dad is coach!), and meanwhile the old Coach himself (Craig T. Nelson as grandpa Zeek) is being a pain. Adam, it seems, is a parent with a lot going on and a lot of responsibilities. And meanwhile we have brother Crosby (Dax Shepard), assistant coach extraordinaire, sleeping through the third inning / hung over.
Then there’s some other couple related to the family where the wife is busy with her gig and doesn’t have a lot of time for the young daughter or something… and a bunch of other characters and early plotlines too that I had a hard time absorbing. There’s a lot going on on this show!
Overall take is that this is a big, busy, ambitious show with a lot of potential. But I didn’t love the pilot. It was enjoyable in places, the core cast (particularly Krause, Nelson, Graham, and Shepard) is quite good and good together, and I’ll keep watching. But it could go either way.
More thoughts on the Parenthood pilot:
* Peter Krause is a really good actor in everything he does. Not a bad choice at all in building a TV franchise, particularly a drama with a good dose of comedy thrown into the mix.
* Speaking of comedy, Dax Shepard typically appears in comedies, and often I’ve felt that his tone is a little too dark in the past. But here as a somewhat lighter note in a dramatic series he fits in pretty well, and his chemistry with Krause is spot on.
* I’m not sure about the crayon line drawing underneath the Parenthood logo to open the show. Can’t we come up with something a little more clever than that?
* What kind of rambling woodsy mansion (located somewhere in the greater Bay Area, presumably) do these grandparents live in?
* Uh, just me or two teenaged siblings of opposite sexes sharing the same room a little bit creepy? And with lines of “releasing tensions, take it to the bathroom”? Extra creepy, hold the urge to jump out of my first story window.
* I found the storyline with young Max “acting out” after not getting a hit at baseball and getting roughed around a little by Grandpa Zeke on the basketball court kind of annoying.
* The storyline with Sarah going on a blind date with her boyfriend of 20 years ago was much, much better and more interesting. “Any kind of toast,” says Sarah as she marches out the door. Great line.
* The bit with the two young gal cousins (I think?) ending up in jail felt way too rushed and busy. I don’t know what they did, or why, or why together. Finally Amber says, “Mom, it wasn’t my weed.
* Frankly, there were a lot of plotlines and situations going on in the final half of the pilot that went above my head as I was too busy absorbing all that I had learned and absorbed in the first half of the pilot. Way too much going on too early, thought I.
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.