A recent post on Reddit pointed to a 0% rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes for Fox's new sitcom, Dads. The Tomatometer offers this consensus: "A near-total disaster, Dads makes the fatal mistake of believing its racist gags can lend an edge to its aggressively predictable writing and unlikable characters." I've seen bits and pieces of the show, mainly to kill time until its superior comes on, Brooklyn Nine Nine. What I've seen doesn't make me want to see any more than bits and pieces. In fact, I'd do better to see less.
The premise of Dads, according to Rotten Tomatoes, is simple enough to the point of dull and uninspired: "Two successful video-game developers take in their hard-to-live-with fathers in this sitcom." A part of me wonders if the premise in itself was sales-pitch to ride the coattails of Chuck Lorre-spearheaded sitcom juggernaut The Big Bang Theory in terms of nerd pandering, but what little I saw didn't lead me to believe there was much to draw me in. Yes, the two stars Seth Green and Giovanni Ribisi play video-game developers (though I don't recall much development being done), but I don't remember much developing. Maybe an in-joke that I'd be in on had I watched from the first second, but I'm not so sure. Oh look, a hot Asian assistant. Literally the first time I saw her, she was dressed as a schoolgirl. There was a joke in there too, but I missed it.
But I'm not the only one missing the jokes. It's clear from Metacritic that the critics abhor it. Philadelphia Daily News' Ellen Gray lays it out bluntly: "Dads just isn't very funny." She goes as far to say that the cast is above the material they utter. Entertainment Weekly's Melissa Maerz expresses the consensus of the show's racist humor, unsure if it's the "clueless dads...who might be racist, or maybe it's just the show." What little I saw of it didn't toss any racist humor my way, or if it did it was so unfunny that it didn't even land. I have to agree with Gray's sentiment about the cast being above the show...for the most part. Giovanni Ribisi's done some sitcom work in the past--I recently saw him in a rerun of Friends--and Seth Green's got a solid TV comedy resume. But the dads might be our weakest links.
Comedy giant Martin Mull and Animal House lead Peter Riegert star as the eponymous dads. The creators of the show may have been seeking some hidden comedy energies that lie latent in the two aging funnymen, though they didn't appear to tap into that ley line. Choosing Mull made some sense to me--he's a comedy veteran who showed he still had chops as recently as Arrested Development, though arguably AD is not so recent. But Riegert's presence feels anomalous. He was a part of one of the biggest comedy films of the 20th Century, but is that enough to reel him into this mess? Was he even a first choice?
To put out some fires, Fox strategically put out a commercial that essentially says, "f--- the critics." In a bold maneuver, the network owns up to the lack of love from critics, but argues, that it's the fans who matters. Not these elitist buttholes who review TV shows for a living. And Fox might have a point--CBS's Big Bang Theory is still on after six years and the critics haven't shown it the warmest of receptions. But they haven't straight-up panned it either like they did with Dads. Regardless, a 7.9 score from users is a higher rating than the "57 out of a 100" Metascore.
There is something curious about this divide, however. Purely comparing numbers, 57 is higher than 7.9. The Metascore puts itself out of 100 points whereas the User Score is only out of 10. Metacritic privileges the professional critics by seemingly weighing their scores over that of users. What purpose does this serve? Does Metacritic believe that user reviews are not as valid as critic reviews? If so, why?
I admit that I take more stock in critic reviews than I do those of users. I privilege the professionalism over layman's critiques. I'm not so sure it's a good thing. But a service like Metacritic appears to promote this critical elitism over public opinion. And I fear I'm only promoting it further by using it.
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