FOX Tuesdays @ 8pm ET
"Dads" explores the often treacherous terrain of the father-son landscape. The multi-camera comedy series follows two successful guys – and childhood best friends – now in their mid-30s, whose relatively stable lives get turned upside down when their inappropriate and pain-in-the-neck patriarchs move in.
It is hard to put into words how bad "Dads" really is -- but to give you an idea, sitting through the 22 minutes of the pilot's running time felt like experiencing an hour-long root canal with no anesthesia. This is an entirely humorless show that should be an utter embarrassment to everyone who worked on it -- which shockingly includes such big names as Seth Green and Giovanni Ribisi as the two stars and Seth MacFarlane ("Family Guy") as the show's executive producer. "Dads" aims for the same type of fair-game offensiveness that "Family Guy" achieves so well, but the so-called "humor" here is too tone-deaf to be considered funny. There's a fine line between irreverent political incorrectness and outright racism/sexism; "Dads" sprints across that line and never looks back.
In the pilot's most cringe-worthy scene, the two leads force their Asian-American assistant to dress up like a "sexy Asian schoolgirl" to please a group of potential Chinese investors. This scene manages the double-whammy of being degrading to both women and Asians. (The writers also seem oblivious to the fact that, in making actress Brenda Song participate in this scene, they've positioned themselves alongside the investors.) Unfortunately, the degradation doesn't stop there: in another scene, one of the dads mistakes Giovanni Ribisi's wife of Hispanic descent for a maid. It's the kind of humor that is purely meant to shock and attract attention; it's also just plain lazy, exposing a total lack of wit or intelligence on the part of the writers.
Even FOX's entertainment chairman acknowledged that this show is terrible. At the Television Critics Association Press Tour this summer, where the first two episodes of "Dads" were screened for critics to abysmal results, he had this to say about the show's future: "If this show is still low-hanging-fruit jokes that seem in bad taste and haven’t been earned with intelligence, and the characters have not become full-blown over the course of the next summer months — number one, the show’s not going to work. And number two, you should take it to task." Don't worry, Kevin. We will.
The last time a show this offensive premiered was two years ago, when ABC came out with the equally tone-deaf cross-dressing comedy "Work It", in which two men felt so threatened by women in the workforce that they decided to disguise themselves as women to get jobs. That show was cancelled three days after its second episode aired. We'll see if "Dads" can beat that record. Fingers crossed.
If you caught the premiere, what did you think? Did you find it funny or groan-worthy? Let us know by tweeting @StageBuddy!
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yeLSEd8Ts4[/youtube]
