I am – Hercules!!
UPDATE! Somebody mentioned “the hilarity of Life on a Stick,” so I am reminded to relay how Fox’s sitcoms ranked last season. Average number of viewers in millions:
1. Stacked (9.8)
2. The Simpsons (9.6)
3. Life on a Stick (9.2)
4. American Dad (8.5)
5. Family Guy (7.6)
6. That ‘70s Show (6.9)
7. Arrested Development (5.9)
8. Malcolm in the Middle (5.6)
9. Quintuplets (5.2)
10. King of the Hill (4.8)
11. The Bernie Mac Show (4.7)
12. The Sketch Show (4.4)
Back to "The War at Home":
It’s a sitcom, created by writer Rob Lotterstein (“Suddenly Susan,” “Will & Grace”), about parents raising teens. It stars Michael Rapaport (“Boston Public,” “Hitch”), Anita Barone (“The Jeff Foxworthy Show,” “Daddio”), Kaylee Defer (“The Mountain”), Dean Collins (“Jack & Bobby”) and Kyle Sullivan (“All That”).
After my picks for the new season were posted this week I kept getting asked which shows I really hated. Look no further than “The War At Home,” which rivals even the likes of “Inside Schwartz” and “Quintuplets” for pure awfulness. A barrage of moldy gags striving for outrageousness. Watching it is like being trapped in an elevator with a boorish codger determined to while away 30 minutes by rattling off half-remembered off-color jokes. Perhaps Fox is perversely trying to punish everyone who has stuck with “The Simpsons”?
But what matters Herc’s opinion? TV Guide says:
… War strains for outrageousness but is too shrill to be much more than unpleasant. Desperate gay and racial jokes thud, delivered by a charmless cast …
USA Today gives it a star and a half (out of four) and says:
… Over-narrated and underachieving … With its homophobia, racism and bleeped-out profanity, this desperate attempt to draw the old Married ... with Children crowd was probably unsalvageable no matter who was cast. Still, any chance the show might have had is scuttled by Rapaport's wooden, charmless performance. …
Entertainment Weekly says:
… Oh, it was supposed to be funny. Who knew? …
Variety says:
… Fantasy sequences and actors talking directly to the camera give "War at Home" a badge of distinction, albeit a gimmicky one, and no jokes are as clever as a "West Side Story" number in an early montage. Otherwise, "War at Home" is an uninspired collection of cliches, sex jokes and uninvolving characters. … Rob Lotterstein's script lacks any gut-busting jokes or scenarios. Some of the humor is even derived from the early days of TV, whether it's eliciting a reaction from dad or cross-dressing. …
The Hollywood Reporter says:
… There are a few moderately whimsical pieces scattered throughout the premiere of this half-hour … never comes close to jelling. The cliches fly with disturbing regularity, punctuated by generous helpings of lame bathroom humor. It symbolizes the kind of forced political incorrectness that tells us creator-producer-writer Rob Lotterstein was using "Married ... With Children" as his template. Unfortunately, this isn't the '80s anymore, or even the '90s, and while the collar here may be white, the sensibility is strictly blue and feels instantly tired and dated. …
The Los Angeles Times says:
… a show that tilts toward the familiar except for the man in the middle of it. Rapaport … is a fresh choice as a man-boy whose wife and kids dance circles around him. There has always been something real, something believable and funny, about his jittery oafishness, his toothless machismo. Here, in fact, I even wanted him to harangue and yell more, a strange thought to have about a sitcom. … "The War at Home" tries to further leaven things by having the characters talk to the camera. That seemed fresh back when "The Bernie Mac Show" debuted, but Mac's a good ranter — a professional one, in fact. On "The War at Home," the device seems like an extra stab at being au courant, but it's nothing that lifts the pilot, at least, to another level.
The Boston Herald says:
… a very bad sitcom. If there's any justice, ``The War at Home'' will be the first casualty of the fall season. … sandwiched between two animated shows … and … less realistic than either one. …
The Boston Globe says:
… has absolutely nothing going for it, never mind charm. It's a pile of willfully outrageous jokes trying to cover up a complete dearth of wit, warmth, and character. It's a grating half-hour of attention-getting bluster … It's remarkable how thoroughly ''The War at Home" can transform shock into stock. The more it tries to jolt us with political incorrectness and penis jokes, the more profoundly ho-hum it all gets.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer says:
… I assure you, there are several gut-busting gems of hilarity on the fall television schedule, which we will run down for you next week. "The War At Home" is not among them. Understand, Fox has a habit of always trying to return to the show that put it on the map almost 20 years ago -- "Married... With Children," to be specific. Actually, "War" might have been mated beautifully with the Bundys in 1987. But that was then, and this is awful. … "War's" a losing battle; Fox should just stick with its 'toons.
The San Francisco Chronicle says:
… a freshman comedy from Fox that repackages three or four other painfully bad sitcoms and dares trot it out for your perusal. Be off, lame show. … If "The War at Home" spent more time on good jokes instead of recycling every gimmick ever seen on TV, it might merely be mediocre, but it's worse. …
8:30 p.m. Sunday. Fox.
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