Home Economics Review | Hollywood journalist

Topher Grace, Caitlin McGee, and Jimmy Tatro star in the ABC family sitcom as siblings separated by vastly different economic circumstances.

ABC’s promising new comedy Domestical economy wants to be a timely show about the importance of family in a precarious post-quarantine world, when in fact it’s a comedy that is slightly out of step with the times.

Domestical economy launches at least a year behind schedule, as it could have been hailed as the best comedy in a 2020 mid-season pack filled with shows about how family is the best medicine for economic insecurity. Across three episodes sent to critics, it’s leaps and bounds better than Surpassed, Indebted, Broke and United we fall, a quartet of mid-season series that even TV critics might not remember. All four indicated that Hollywood realizes that class is something that should be discussed further, without understanding exactly how to do it. Domestical economy has the same problem.

And maybe Economic receptionits two or three years late. In a perfect world, a series like this should at least have the opportunity to develop surrounded by compatible shows;Domestical economy would make a great match with Single parents and could be part of ABC programming with Fresh off the boat and Modern family and Voiceless. Never mind.

Created by Michael Colton and John Aboud, Domestical economy focuses on the Hayworth family, with three grown siblings, “one in the 1%, one from the middle class and one barely holding out.” The middle class Hayworth is Tom (Topher Grace), married to Marina (Karla Souza) and living in acceptable chaos with their three children. Tom is a novelist whose latest book didn’t sell. Marina is a former lawyer. You know things are bad because Tom complains about being “almost 40 and cutting supermarket coupons”. Honestly, I don’t know if the show is aware of how unfriendly this complaint makes the character. Coupon rule.

Hayworth who barely holds is Sarah (Caitlin McGee). She’s an unemployed child therapist, his wife Denise (Sasheer Zamata) is a teacher, and although they live in a cramped Bay Area loft with several children, they to do live in a Bay Area loft, where they take turns talking New Age and stereotypically “waking up” talking points. The show can be aware of how often this makes the characters unfriendly.

Finally, there’s the youngest Hayworth, Connor (Jimmy Tatro). His marriage falls apart, but he is rich and so as soon as the quarantine year ends (a fact acknowledged in the pilot and never mentioned again) he moves with his daughter Gretchen (Shiloh Bearman) the only juvenile character. from the series to make an individual impression so far at Matt Damon’s former home with a wonderful view of a matte painting of the Golden Gate Bridge. He makes his money in finance, but writers prefer to treat him like a weak bulb who has been lucky in wealth, another odd choice when it comes to generating public sympathy, although Tatro does it. play well.

The Hayworths regularly host brunches, the occasional sleepover, and attend weddings together, with fights and then cuddles that inevitably ensue.

The early episodes are positively littered with odd choices, flawed illustrations of economic status, and questionable markers of family relationships. I guarantee viewers will be bugged in a way that they weren’t meant to be by things like cutting coupons to indicate to take a loan from a sibling, or the way almost every word from Sarah’s or Denise’s mouth makes them sound. types of characters rather than people. Other things only trigger my OCD tendencies, like how the show claims Topher Grace and Jimmy Tatro are believable not just as siblings (no issues there), but as siblings and sisters separated by only a few years (the actors seem to be 13 years apart because they are). People point to the Modern family pilot as an exemplary model because 250 episodes of character dynamics between at least 10 characters were perfectly presented in 22 minutes. No one will point to Domestical economy in the same way.

However, disorder is far more the rule than the exception in comedy pilots, and the three episodes of Domestical economy I’ve seen a lot of work with the show. The characterizations are patchy, especially as the writers try to figure out what’s funny about being Grace, a process that includes a wide, unsuccessful physical comedy in the pilot that gives way to a much more endearing awkwardness and a really funny bad karaoke by the third. But the balance between sibling meanness and sibling love is handled well, and the dialogue points to Grace’s gift with ironic, needy sarcasm and Tatro’s knack for making a lunkhead type adorable. (although it’s not always clear how this type of lunkhead is. earn $ 5 million a year). Zamata, trained in the valuation of a material limited to its time SNL, keeps Denise from being just a looping cliché and Souza, with a wineglass as a constant prop, wins the highest laugh-to-line ratio in the extended family. Children appear to be solidly cast, one of the hallmarks of the ABC family comedy brand.

There is not a lot of episodic motor to Domestical economy. The money thing in the first episode culminates with a deconstruction of Monopoly which is Connor’s only moment of true native intelligence, but it’s not as if the show wants there to be any stakes as to whether Sarah gets a job or if Marina has to become a lawyer again, let alone how they’re going to pay the rent. Tom is trying to write a book about his family, and it’s hinted that siblings won’t like it, but not why they would really care.

It’s not like a network sitcom needs a boost anyway. Domestical economy works best when there is just the family gathered at a brunch or party; in these scenes you can see enough appeal to make this series develop in the same way Single parents fact, from a ragged start to one of my favorite comedies by the time ABC canceled it.

Interpretation: Topher Grace, Caitlin McGee, Jimmy Tatro, Karla Souza, Sasheer Zamata, Shiloh Bearman, Jordyn Curet, Chloe Jo Rountree and JeCobi Swain

Creators: Michael Colton and John Aboud

Airs Wednesdays at 8:30 p.m. ET / PT on ABC starting April 7.