How To Live With Your Parents (For The Rest Of Your Life) is a classic example of a pilot trying to do too much – to the point where many characters are introduced with lazy bits of on-screen text, complete with arrows in case we get really confused. Underneath the attention-grabbing raunch and predictable familial themes of the pilot though, there is a tiny bit of promise about a single mother trying to piece her life back together – although it’s mostly buried in this pilot, with its whirlwind of scenes, flashbacks, voice overs, and characters.
Sarah Chalke stars as Polly, single mother who decided to leave her husband after years of his irresponsibility. With nowhere else to go, she tosses her daughter Natalie in the car and drives to her parent’s house, a less than ideal place to live. Her mother Elaine (Weeds‘s Elizabeth Perkins) is a classic free spirit archetype, always running off at the mouth about her sexual adventures or how they’re more interesting than children. One of the things the pilot tries to do is establish a bond between Polly and Elaine, but it doesn’t quite form by the time they’re making the obligatory emotional connection in the end.
Like most regretful parents, Polly doesn’t want her daughter to end up like her – although considering that she lives in a huge house with a loving family (and has a job, even if it’s making smoothies), it’s not as bad as she makes it out to be. Her biggest problem with her mother is her lack of internal filter, which is somehow tied to Elaine’s complete lack of responsibility. Their dynamic doesn’t feel like mother and daughter at any point: their emotional moments are largely unestablished, like when they’re in the car together and Polly explains her typical fears of failing as a parent and making mistakes, and Elaine turns the conversation into a foggy story about the time she had sex with a Chicago Bull (“a good one”).
I’ve never been a fan of Brad Garrett, but his character Max is the only one I really enjoyed in the pilot episode. Unfortunately, he’s a little separated from the “true family” dynamic, being Polly’s stepfather, but his relationship with the women in his family was the most intriguing piece to watch. They don’t really make him much of a character (he lost a nut to testicular cancer, and has an earring), but his presence and interactions with both Polly and Elaine oddly establish him as the most mature entity on the show (despite talking about his balls all the time, and being a somewhat inept step-grandfather).
Polly herself isn’t all that interesting – at least yet. The first six months of her adult single life are skipped over, but when we start spending time with her, it might as well be the first day. She’s still not used to anything her parents do, and of course, the pilot revolves around her getting back into the dating world (which ends in a creepy way, as she leaves a heavily-drugged man lying at his own doorstep… but that’s another story) for the first time since getting divorced. But there isn’t much more than that: she’s a little bitter about her job (seeing as she makes smoothies eight hours a day), and she’s super-obsessed with her daughter, projecting her fears and failures in life onto her in order to ignore them (including a fear of dogs both large and tiny).
Had HTLWYP (FTROYL) been funnier, it would be easier to forgive the ending (which is a big emotional reach) and the lack of interesting dynamics between characters. However, it is a pilot, and showrunners and writers have to be given a few episodes. A new show is like a brand new leather glove: it’s usually stiff as hell, and it takes some serious dedication and practice to wear it in until it’s comfortable. However, outside of Max and Polly (who don’t really interact one-on-one at all in the episode), the show doesn’t present us with very interesting characters – and more importantly, doesn’t find a lot of intriguing material to introduce or explore them in it’s first 21 minutes (as pilots get shorter and shorter, this issue seems to crop up more and more). There are glimpses of potential in the pilot, but HTLWYP has a lot of work to do to become appointment (or even interesting) television.
Grade: C-
Other thoughts/observations:
– Polly finally leaves Julian (her ex-husband) because he adopted a piece of highway. Could they not have thought of a more meaningful reason?
– although she’s too broke to get an apartment, Polly does manage to buy a new car in her first six months as a single woman.
– Julian calls Max dad, which he’s not too fond of.
– Polly goes on a date with Jewish Superman, who she encourages to drink after taking an anxiety pill because her mother does it all the time. Kind of a creepy plot, and when she leaves him super inebriated on his porch, it becomes disturbing. That’s beyond irresponsible – it’s dangerous as hell to leave someone in that condition on their front porch.
– Jenn the co-worker (who we barely meet), is described like this in ABC’s press materials:
“Jenn is an early 20’s, single, half latina hipster who is friends with and works with Polly. She dates a lot, pierces herself a lot, but does not work a lot.”
doesn’t she sound FUN?
– this show has one of the worst titles ever, adding to the legacy ABC’s built for shitty comedy names the last five years.
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