Grandfathered

With Daniel Chun penning a quick-witted script, Grandfathered subverts every hokey cliche that it nearly crashes into by maintaining a savvy self-awareness.... The brand of humor will remind viewers of “The Mindy Project” and the short-lived “Ben and Kate” with one-liners delivered so quick you could almost miss them. The supporting--are largely believable and charming.

Romance greases the gears on a show like this, but Grandfathered is always more interesting when it’s the premiere of a show about people navigating the unique little family unit they accidentally made.

If there's nothing particularly unconventional about Grandfathered, it carries off its conventions with considerable skill. Brewster, Peck and Jenrette take good advantage of every moment the script provides, while Stamos breezily bounces between mocking them and being a good-sport target for mockery.

The first episode of Grandfathered is amusing and shows promise.

The strength of the show lies with Stamos, who's doing his best Clooney and give Grandfathered heart. [2 Oct 2015, p.66]

Grandfathered is a well-crafted piece of work, with jokes coming in at all angles.... But it's also a quietly touching story of emotional lost-and-found, with a cast of remarkable range.

Stamos’ show has the writing, performance and concept chops to go the distance.

Grandfathered" is Stamos at his handsome-but-vulnerable best. Its pilot, a snappy half-hour sprinkled with celebrity cameos and one-liners, isn't groundbreaking television, but it sets the table for a multigenerational rom-com.

Grandfathered tells a slick, likeable iteration of this tale [irrepressible bachelor who gets civilized by domestic responsibility], cruising along on Stamos’ charisma, some timely pop culture references, and a good script.

It all makes for a nice enough start to a comedy that already appears to have a pretty happy ending in the bank after just the first episode.

It’ll take a few more zany diaper changes (you knew there had to be some) before we’ll know if there’s a stronger show here. If not, then Grandfathered is just a more flashy version of “Raising Hope.”

Grandfathered is a nicely written and well-acted charmer - but it threatens to get old fast.

There's a buoyancy to these characters and an edginess to this script that make Grandfathered far less cloying and monotonous than the show's ads -- and its opening five minutes -- initially present it as.

Brewster classes up the proceedings considerably with comic timing the rest of the cast ought to study.... Grandfathered doesn’t have too many solid punchlines--it gets by on charm, which Stamos possesses in abundance.

Grandfathered is as winningly cast as “The Grinder”--Mr. Stamos manages to be smarmy and charming at the same time--but its supporting characters need development.

In practice, Grandfathered is cute but forgettable.

Stamos' half-hour goes on to indulge such other TV trends as black lesbian confidantes, "BuzzFeed listicle" Web checks and the single camera's incessant progression of "witty" repartee jumping to quick-cut "gags" jumping to "awww" sentiment.

After one episode of Grandfathered, it’s easy to feel like you’ve seen the first three seasons, especially if Jimmy is going to constantly be presented choices between bedding desirable women and looking after the moppet who has fallen into his lap.

"Awws" are more frequent than laughs.

Grandfathered, on the other hand, feels as slick, predictable and manipulative as possible, dropping lots of punchlines about its premise.