Aaaaaaaaaaand The Michael J. Fox Show continues to charm the pants off of me. The show continues to be a delightful mix of real family moments and comedic set up and payoffs. This week was an introspective study in what I like to call Accidentally Bad Parenting.
It starts with the youngest. A few offhand words from his dad teach him the key to women. "You're right. I'm wrong. I'm sorry." Throughout the episode, he wreaks havoc, absolving himself of punishment with those 6 words . . . until he tries it on Annie. She just rolls her eyes and affectionately tells Mike that those words don't actually work; she just lets him think they do. Of course, she can't really hold it against him considering the disaster they both perpetrated when they tried to get Eve, who recently discovered her artistic side, to stop taking nude pictures.
The problem is a common one among parents (or so I hear). Your teenager suddenly thinks you're cool and wants to spend time with you. It's hard to be the disciplinarian in the face of such warmth. Both Mike and Annie continue to back down from their shared mission in order to keep their daughter smiling. Do you know how hard it is to get a teenager to smile? To quote Mike Henry, "At first we thought it was drugs. But it turns out she can feel."
How do you tell the mythological happy teenager that they can't take pictures of naked men? As it turns out, you don't; you just make it worse until you use every stereotypical answer in the Parenting for Dummies handbook until your child runs away in frustration.
While I think The MJF Show missed an opportunity to explore why progressive parents would have an issue with their daughter taking nude photos (there are numerous reasons worth exploring), I do respect the show runners for not overburdening a sitcom format with PSAs (I'm looking to you, season 4 of Community). Instead, the focus of the episode focused on when parents (or adults, if you care about the oldest brother's relationship drama, which I don't) accidentally make bad situations worse.
The best part (and this is a rare concept for network TV) is that Mike and Annie didn't turn on each other and blame each other for doing the wrong thing, or judge the other to see who screwed up more. Instead, they were a team through it all, even breaking into the community center to lift the soon-to-be-displayed photo of a naked Annie.
Parents as a team. It's my favorite part of this show and a theme I wish more sitcoms embraced.
It starts with the youngest. A few offhand words from his dad teach him the key to women. "You're right. I'm wrong. I'm sorry." Throughout the episode, he wreaks havoc, absolving himself of punishment with those 6 words . . . until he tries it on Annie. She just rolls her eyes and affectionately tells Mike that those words don't actually work; she just lets him think they do. Of course, she can't really hold it against him considering the disaster they both perpetrated when they tried to get Eve, who recently discovered her artistic side, to stop taking nude pictures.
The problem is a common one among parents (or so I hear). Your teenager suddenly thinks you're cool and wants to spend time with you. It's hard to be the disciplinarian in the face of such warmth. Both Mike and Annie continue to back down from their shared mission in order to keep their daughter smiling. Do you know how hard it is to get a teenager to smile? To quote Mike Henry, "At first we thought it was drugs. But it turns out she can feel."
How do you tell the mythological happy teenager that they can't take pictures of naked men? As it turns out, you don't; you just make it worse until you use every stereotypical answer in the Parenting for Dummies handbook until your child runs away in frustration.
While I think The MJF Show missed an opportunity to explore why progressive parents would have an issue with their daughter taking nude photos (there are numerous reasons worth exploring), I do respect the show runners for not overburdening a sitcom format with PSAs (I'm looking to you, season 4 of Community). Instead, the focus of the episode focused on when parents (or adults, if you care about the oldest brother's relationship drama, which I don't) accidentally make bad situations worse.
The best part (and this is a rare concept for network TV) is that Mike and Annie didn't turn on each other and blame each other for doing the wrong thing, or judge the other to see who screwed up more. Instead, they were a team through it all, even breaking into the community center to lift the soon-to-be-displayed photo of a naked Annie.
Parents as a team. It's my favorite part of this show and a theme I wish more sitcoms embraced.