PILOT REVIEW: Fam

FAM

Starring: Nina Dobrev, Tone Bell, Odessa Adlon, Sheryl Lee Ralph, with Brian Stokes Mitchell, and Gary Cole

Created by Corinne Kingsbury
Written by Corinne Kingsbury, Directed by Scott Ellis

IN SHORT: The Odd Couple: Family Edition

THE PREMISE:
Fam is centered on a newly engaged couple, Clem and Nick (Nina Dobrev and Tone Bell). Nick comes from a loving, if slightly overbearing family, with parents Rose and Walt (Sheryl Lee Ralph and Brian Stokes Mitchell). Clem comes from a very dysfunctional family with a narcissistic and estranged father, Freddy (Gary Cole) and a troubled teenage half-sister, Shannon (Odessa Adlon).

THE REVIEW:
Fam is everything you would expect from a CBS sitcom about two different families. Take that as you will, but it's pretty much the best description. Everything about this sitcom felt like a retread. Despite an occasional funny line, most of the jokes were detectable from a mile away while the interactions felt forced at best and downright fake at worst.

The cast is solid across the board. Nina Dobrev and Tone Bell seem like they can develop some chemistry. I like Broadway veterans Sheryl Lee Ralph and Brian Stokes Mitchell, but both were pretty obnoxious in the pilot and they just seemed to throw in an unnecessary reason for Mitchell to use his impressive singing voice. Gary Cole was pretty underwhelming in what could have been a scene-stealing role. I felt like for being a character who's supposedly such a narcissist that his daughter cut him out of her life, he seemed pretty tame. And I know Cole is capable of being a larger personality but he underplayed it all here. Odessa Adlon was obnoxious at times (her fake crying scene), but got a couple good lines off (her butt cancer joke delivery, despite being predictable, was well done).

Rarely does a TV sitcom get it all right in a pilot episode and I'm mindful of that. It takes time for chemistry to develop and we have to get to know the characters to appreciate them in a way we may not have to in a more plot driven drama. But my problem with a show like this and most other CBS sitcoms is they just don't seem like they have very far to go. At best, this might be a tolerable show like The Neighborhood. At worst, it's going to be another 9JKL. It just doesn't seem worth my time to see if Fam can gel enough to get to a "meh" level.

BOTTOM LINE:
Since I started this blog, I feel like I have seen 100 pilots like this. There's just not much to say about a sitcom with forced dialogue and canned laughter. Fam is the next in the list and it will probably see the same fate as most of the others.