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Tim Allen sitcom just for his fans

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4 days ago

January 12, 2025

One of the best factor I can say about “Shifting Gears,” ABC’s new Tim Allen-rants-about-woke-stuff-he-hates sitcom, is that I believed it might be quite a bit worse than it’s.

Sure, eight years after the community canceled his final sitcom of the identical style, “Final Man Standing” (later picked up by Fox, the place it ran till 2021), Allen is again on ABC. And now, as a substitute of enjoying an overwrought patriarch working at an outdoorsy firm battling with a spouse and daughters, he is an overwrought patriarch who owns a traditional automobile store and battles one daughter, performed by Kat Dennings. So completely different!

“Gears” (Wednesdays, 8 EST/PST, ★½ out of 4), created by Mike Scully and Julie Thacker-Scully (“The Simpsons”), is neither unique nor thrilling; It is an unchallenging and never very humorous package deal of generational stereotypes and grating banter between Allen and Dennings. The 2 episodes made obtainable for evaluation function dialogue so bland it might have been written by AI. They lack pleasure in any manner, however aren’t so achingly horrible they offend the senses. And contemplating each Allen’s monitor report and the latest spate of deeply disappointing multi-camera sitcoms on broadcast TV, that is truly an achievement. Expectations are the whole lot.

This sequence finds Allen as Matt, a widower, everyman and possessor of Fox Information opinions. His quiet life is turned the wrong way up (a sitcom should) when his daughter Riley (Dennings) strikes again house along with her two children amid an costly divorce. Now he has to cope with these gentle children who would quite Uber than drive and his rebellious, free-thinking daughter, all whereas operating his store, manned by his unserious mechanics Sew (Daryl “Chill” Mitchell) and Gabriel (Seann William Scott). How a lot can one man deal with?

It is all very predictable, designed for lowest widespread denominator humor and affirmation bias. The youngsters (Barrett Margolis and Maxwell Simkins) act like “children lately” with their screens and their made-up nervousness. Dennings’ Riley appears like a young person regardless of being in her 30s. Matt could also be flawed about some issues, however he all the time retains the ethical excessive floor. This is not a person who is able to be taught something new. And the sequence even manages to make the joke (greater than as soon as!) that Riley and Matt are mistaken for a pair. You may shiver with disgust.

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Finally, although, it would not actually matter how good or dangerous “Gears” is, as a result of it is a Tim Allen present. There are two camps of individuals: Those that like Allen and can observe him to any sequence that may string two sentences collectively; and people to whom he’s an intense turnoff, and will not trouble sampling “Gears” even when it was an Emmy-winning triumph. I’ve to confess Allen is just not my explicit cup of tea, however some doses of the actor are advantageous, whereas others might be downright poisonous. A “Santa Clause” TV present? Inconceivable to sit down by means of. A middling sitcom? Form of palatable.