PILOT REVIEW: Council of Dads

COUNCIL OF DADS

Starring: Sarah Wayne Callies, Clive Standen, J. August Richards, Michele Weaver, Emjay Anthony, Thalia Tran, Blue Chapman, Steven Silver and Michael O'Neill

Created by Joan Rater and Tony Phelan
Written by Joan Rater & Tony Phelan, Directed by James Strong

The network that brought you This is Us and has tried to replicate it since with Rise and The Village, has another one for you. Now, this is coming from someone who loves This is Us but also recognizes when a show is being manipulative and not creative. Every hit spawns copycats, look at what happened (and is still happening to a degree) after shows like Friends and Lost. There could be worse types of shows to try to emulate though and Council of Dads seems to fall somewhere in between the best of these kinds of shows (This is Us) and the worst (The Village).

Council of Dads is centered on a family whose father, Scott (guest star Tom Everett Scott) gets cancer. The pilot takes place over a whole year from the cancer diagnosis to the (SPOILER ALERT) death of the patriarch. Left behind are his wife, Robin (Sarah Wayne Callies) who just gave birth to their youngest daughter as well as older children Theo, Charlotte and JJ (Emjay Anthony, Thalia Tran & Blue Chapman) and his oldest from a previous relationship, Luly (Michele Weaver). Now, here's the cloying part, Scott asks a group of his friends to be a "Council of Dads" in the event of his death. This includes his doctor, Oliver Post (J. August Richards), older friend Larry Mills (Michael O'Neill) and long time friend Anthony (Clive Standen).

There's a lot of things wrong with how Council of Dads did this pilot. They spent most of it centered on a character who doesn't live to see the end of the pilot. I understand that's a story they wanted to tell but it gives us almost no indication of what the show is going to be like. The show also pulled a A Million Little Things and dealt with almost every big life issue in a 42 minute pilot. There was cancer, death, pregnancy and birth, an LGBTQ issue, a wedding and a discussion about alcoholism. I'm not saying that these topics wouldn't come up, they certainly have in time for shows like This is Us and Parenthood, but we don't need them all in the pilot.

The biggest issue with how they did the pilot though is I was much more interested in the story with Tom Everett Scott as the father than with the "council" we saw for a few minutes at the end of the episode. If they had done a show about a family with Scott as the patriarch, I might be more interested in it long-term because I thought Scott was strong and had good chemistry with his on-screen family. Everything with the other three dads, even with a strong performance from J. August Richards, felt incredibly manipulative and aimed at simply trying to get the audience to cry. Maybe it will surprise me but I feel like I can tell what future episode will look like - "child A has a problem and rebels against Dad Council Member #2 until they learn a lesson at the end." Let's hope I'm wrong.

WILL I WATCH IT AGAIN?
Yes, despite my better judgment I'm a sucker for shows like this and give them more time than others. So this will probably be the same but it won't be a long term commitment if it keeps trying too hard.