PILOT REVIEW: Splitting Up Together

SPLITTING UP TOGETHER












Starring: Jenna Fischer, Oliver Hudson, Bobby Lee, Diane Farr, Lindsay Price, Olivia Keville, Van Crosby, Sander Thomas

Developed for American Television by Emily Kapnek
Teleplay by Emily Kapnek, Directed by Dean Holland

THE PREMISE
Lena and Martin (Jenna Fischer and Oliver Hudson) were once very much in love and happily married. Three kids (Olivia Keville, Van Crosby, & Sander Thomas) later and years of growing apart took its toll and they decided to get a divorce but they decided to do it as a team much to the chagrin of Arthur and Camille (Bobby Lee and Lindsay Price). They decide to tag team and still live in the same house with one parent taking responsibility and one living in the garage.

THE REVIEW
While there was a potential sweetness to this show, it was pretty short on laughs for a sitcom pilot. I didn't laugh once during the pilot. That is problematic because there have been drama pilots with more comedy beats than this one had. As a show, I think the premise is interesting and a different play on the family sitcom. It was interesting to have joint voiceovers to start the show and I think they would be smart to continue to explore the story equally from both Lena and Martin's side of things, which I'm sure they are going to do. I do feel like it was a little bit too soon to have so much plot dedicated to regrets from one of the two central characters. That could have come later in the run.

Among the performances, I liked Jenna Fischer more than Oliver Hudson. Fischer was charming on The Office and she is charming again here with a natural ease in her performance. Hudson was ok but not very memorable. Even less memorable was the rest of the cast. Although they had a storyline with one of the children (Van Crosby), the kids were not used much in the pilot and don't seem to be nearly as engaging as kids on other ABC sitcoms. I think that's a major issue with this show, they needed to make the kids major characters. That has worked so well with shows like The Middle, American Housewife, and others and I don't think they did a good job of giving the kids personality here.

As I already said, Splitting Up Together has the potential to be a sweet family comedy but I don't think the sweetness was strong enough in the pilot to make the lack of laughs acceptable. When Martin was watching their wedding video, I thought to myself that this could be a sweet moment but why is it happening in the middle of the first episode? Other than a brief montage, we barely got to see Lena and Martin on screen at the same time, divorced or together. If this show wants to be wistful or sweet, it needs to earn that. If it wants to be funny, it needs some better jokes ASAP.

WILL I WATCH IT AGAIN?
Yes, I'll give it at least one more episode.