Shifting Gears - Season 1

Watch on ABC or Stream on Hulu

Episodes: Unsure at this time

Rated TV-PG

I was only able to watch the pilot episode. I do not have a subscription to Hulu.

Headstrong Matt (Tim Allen) owns a car restoration shop and after the passing of his wife the wedge that already existed between him and his estranged daughter, Riley (Kat Dennings), grows even deeper. Little does Matt know that he is about to be forced to start focusing less on cars and more on restoring his relationship with Riley when she shows up at his shop with her two teen children. Riley is broke, jobless, and getting a divorce. Maybe Dad can help or maybe coming to him was a huge mistake? Let the restoration begin in true Allen and Dennings comedic style!

Themes:

Cars, growing up, family, grandparents, divorce, starting over, staying informed, getting old, gender, sheltering kids, self sufficiency, the importance and role of mothers, relationships, fixing relationships, teaching, and love.

Language:

A*s - 2 D*mn - 3 Hell - 5

Piss - 2 Religious Exclamations - 4

Stuff to be aware of:

Alcohol - Mocktails and happy hour are mentioned a few times and joked about.

Grossiness - There is a joke about diabetes and your mouth hole being smaller than your butt hole.

Religious Jokes - There is a joke about Jesus not taking an uber because He takes the wheel. Later, another girl jokes about how someone thinks her father walks on water.

Sexual - A guy talks to a car about taking their relationship to the next level.

Violence - Some characters play a video game and talk about how they have to kill a drug lord by blowing her head off.

Other - Someone giving someone else a double bird is brought up in conversation a couple of times.

Overall:

Until watching this show I hadn’t realized how much I had missed sitcoms. The pilot episode was fun and humorous. I had no problem sitting through it twice. I think, like most sitcoms, it will take a few episodes to truly see if this is going to be a gem or not. The pacing, comedic timing, wit, and even the canned audience laughter all worked in establishing the characters and the overall plot in a fluid way. I feel like the writers are tapping into Tim Allen’s more angry side of his humor, which is fine, but they are going to need to work on understanding Dennings a little better. Kat Dennings is hilarious in all her Marvel Cinematic Universe appearances and I would say she steals the scenes she is in. I think she can have that same effect here, it will just take a little creativity to figure out how best to use her with Tim Allen.

Overall, the pilot was fun and I laughed out loud several times. I look forward to the upcoming episode. However, one thing that shocked me a little was how much cursing there was. Maybe this will calm down in the future. It is also well established by now that Allen leans more conservatively than a lot of Hollywood and his humor is more “blue collar.” There is a hint that maybe Dennings will be his opposite, but its hard to tell this early.