Surviving Suburbia
Surviving Suburbia
| 06 April 2009 (USA)
SEASON & EPISODES
  • 1
  • Reviews
    TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.
    Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
    Payno I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
    Staci Frederick Blistering performances.
    raymondsummerlin Admittedly, the first episode was awful. The second, however, was much much better. Bob Saget did not seem so awkward, the wife was not so bad, and the kids were actually fairly good. The best friend could be better, but all in all, the show is improving.I think they would do a lot better if they lost the laugh track. It makes the show very choppy and ruins any comedic flow that could happen. I also think they would do better if they told Saget to stand up, but that is another matter altogether.Some times it takes a show a couple of episodes to get its act together, and then it really improves, aka Kings. I will give it a few more shows to see what happens.
    Syl I believe sitcoms are still worth the effort regardless of the cost. Let's face it, sitcoms are preferable in syndication than any crime dramas. In this sitcom, veteran comic Bob Saget plays a suburban dad and husband and Cynthia Stevenson plays his wife in unmentioned suburb somewhere. In the pilot episode, we meet them and get the basic humor of all about their neighbors and friends like Jere Burns who plays Dr. Jim. The pilot was weak and poorly written but the cast does pull it off and I'm hoping and praying that they get a better time slot as well as some improvement in their scripts. They placed this show right after the dancing with the stars show because it worked for Samantha Who? I am glad that they have a studio audience because comedies don't work well without one in reality and it's an immediate effect. Sadly in today's world, sitcoms are far and few in between and I pray that there will be more to come.
    Ken Nichols (fivecentfamily) One of the worst shows I've seen in a long time.I don't really watch many sitcoms anymore, since most every joke has to do with sex, but I did like Bob in Full House, and I enjoyed the other sitcoms of that era. This is NOTHING like that.Bob plays a completely unlikable character. I guess you could say he's supposed to be kind of like Homer Simpson, but Homer is easy to accept as stupid, where Bob just isn't. We know the REAL Bob Saget too well to be able to accept him in this role of a bumbling boob.The wife was simply irritating and completely unrealistic. All she cared about was her "standing" in the neighborhood. She was no "Marge" to his Homer, in that she was just as bad as he was.The teenage son was supposed to be the voice of reason. Again, completely unrealistic. Watching him "lecture" his father was painful.The little girl was cute, but she was nothing like a real child, either. The obsession with Zac Efron was annoying. Her parents seemed to act like it was fine for her to talk about how she would give Zac a flirtatious look so he would "fall in love with her" and they could "move into her room".But the WORST part was the wishy/washy morality tale. Apparently you don't need to be honest with your neighbors (if you can get something out of them) or even your kids (it's OK that you just WANTED to be honest, because your kids need you to be a "hero" in their eyes), but you should be with your spouse. Ridiculous, but I guess that's what passes for morality these days.I doubt this show will last a month. It's already cleared off my DVR list.
    ShowMeTheMovie I watch a lot of television, but haven't seen a good family comedy in years. I like Cynthia Stevenson, so I was hopeful. When I saw my newspaper describe this show as a "hopelessly generic family sitcom", I admit I had to watch because I was thinking it can't be THAT bad. After all, ABC had positioned it right after "Dancing with the Stars". They must have seen something really good in it. Sad to say, my newspaper was right. No, it wasn't right. It's not a generic sitcom. It's a TERRIBLE sitcom, with lots of generic characters -- the annoying neighbor (Jere Burns - I think he's supposed to be a doctor!), the fat female neighbor (wasn't she the actress who played the ton-of-a-bitch boss in the movie "Wanted?), and the precocious and mostly obnoxious children.Why anybody ever thought Bob Saget could head up a new comedy is beyond me. I know he was a hit on "Full House", but that was an awfully long time ago (emphasis on "awful"). The Olsen twins were still babies then! Did he bankroll this new show? He's just not a good actor.I was among the unfortunate few who went to see "The Drowsy Chaperone" on Broadway, only to discover that the Tony nominated actor who had been playing the lead when I bought the tickets had left the show, and Bob Saget had taken over the part! He was just about as uninteresting in that show as he is in this new sitcom. (It probably was largely due to him that "The Drowsy Chaperone" closed a couple months after he joined the cast.)ABC is out of their collective mind if they're thinking the audiences will continue to watch this show. I like old-fashioned sitcoms. Ah, remember "Roseanne" and "Home Improvement". Those were the good old ABC days. This "Surviving Suburbia" is just a bad sitcom. Its chances of surviving are slim. Its chances of being as memorable as those other hit ABC shows is zero. I can't wait to forget about it.