Council Of Dads

At its core, the family story here works, and mysteries seeded through time are intriguing enough to make staying tuned seem like an appealing proposition. Where “Council of Dads” falters is when it ventures too far onto the outer branches of its premise: The council itself, as an entity, strains plausibility in a way that feels less fantasy-pleasant than, at times, silly. If the show achieves a tighter level of focus deeper into its first season, it may go from “promising” to something more.

At once wholly predictable and oddly given over to needless twists (three big ones unfold in the pilot’s final act, with varying degrees of success), “Council of Dads” might not be breaking much new ground, but its built on a concept rife with possibilities. Its talented cast is another ace up its sleeve, but even with hour-long episodes to fill, attention will have to be paid to each key character and their (essential only, please) storylines to ensure the show meets its most basic of goals: love and care for what really matters.

“Council of Dads” is a better show and less blatantly manipulative than last year’s post-“This is Us” NBC series, “The Village,” but “Council” still piles on the dramatic plot turns in ways that are easy to spot a mile away, though occasionally unpredictable (and maybe even confusing for some viewers). It’s a LOT of drama to absorb all the same.

NBC has been trying to replicate "This is Us" for a couple of seasons, and has found bottling that formula difficult to master. It comes a little closer than most with Council of Dads, an emotional concept that exhausts so much ground in the premiere it's difficult to foresee where it goes thereafter.

Council of Dads isn’t as ridiculous as some of the other This Is Us rip-offs we’ve seen in the past few years, but its also not all that good of a show, either.

[Council of Dads], which is factory-made to trigger an emotional response, actually fails to connect with viewers on an emotional level because it summarizes what could have been an entire season of story in 42 minutes and then asks us to care about people we barely know.