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Dan Yoder and wife, Caroline, think they finally have it made. Their daughter, Molly - not the most diligent of students - has managed to graduate from high school and has been accepted to college. Her proud parents are looking forward to an empty nest and are breathing a heavy sigh of relief. Across town, Molly's secret boyfriend, Junior Hernandez, is graduating from his high school with top honors and has plans to go to Stanford. Parents Miguel and Lisette are bursting with pride. Everything seems like it is falling into place for them, but unbeknownst to both families, Molly and Junior are about to become parents themselves. Once the teens break the big news, these two very different families are thrown together, which goes anything but smoothly...
A show with the word "Family" in its title that tells the story of disparate, modern families that are interconnected and don't always get along but there's always tenderness under the squabbling... Sounds familiar, right? So does everything about "Welcome To The Family", the new NBC comedy starring Mike O'Malley ("Yes, Dear", "Glee") and Ricardo Chavira ("Desperate Housewives") as the fathers of two families thrown together when their offspring make a baby.
O'Malley is Dan, whose daughter Molly is an airhead who doesn't know what she wants to do with life but does know that she doesn't like living in a patriotic society. Or is it parochial? (The word she's looking for is "patriarchal.") Chavira is Chuey, whose son Junior is a put-together valedictorian planning on enrolling at Stanford in the fall and becoming a doctor. All of their plans are changed when Junior accidentally gets Molly pregnant. What results is a perfectly adequate show: nothing spectacular, but not as godawful as some of the other bombs this year ("Dads", "We Are Men").
No new ground is broken here, but at least the writers don't resort to any fart jokes in the very first episode (I'm looking at you, "The Millers"). The plot swings wildly between predictable formula (the moms get along, the dads hate each other) and unlikely contrivances (the dads just happen to meet randomly hours before the families are officially introduced for the first time) with a shiny PG rating (only on a family-friendly sitcom would the options of adoption or abortion not even be mentioned when a teenager finds out she's pregnant).
Perhaps the best thing about the pilot is that it presents the audience with two families of different ethnic backgrounds -- we're prepared for a slew of culture-clash comedy -- and then hardly delivers a single racist punchline. (Think back to last season's similarly-themed CBS comedy "Rob" where Rob Schneider met his wife's offensively stereotypical Hispanic family.) The fact is, these are all just people doing their best to deal with an unexpected situation. The fair treatment of its subjects and the family-friendly atmosphere may be attractive to some, and Mike O'Malley is such a fun actor to watch, but it's hard to see this show really getting off the ground, especially as it's airing against CBS' new hit "The Millers".
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKlNFU8J-a0[/youtube]
