FLIGHT OF THE SWALLOWS
Family band forced to ‘Hit the Road’ in new sitcom
Ihave mixed emotions about “Hit the Road,” a new AT&T Audience Network sitcom starring Jason Alexander.
On the one hand, this 10-episode series about a dysfunctional family band — think a cynical version of “The Partridge Family” — seems compelled to revel in sophomoric toilet humor and sex jokes, including the band’s surname (Swallow) and the name of Alexander’s character, patriarch Ken Swallow. It’s unfortunate and unnecessary. And, at times, you can’t help but think a watered-down version of “Seinfeld” when a goatee-d Alexander delivers his lines with George Costanza-type bluster while entrapped in yet another farcical situation.
But maybe that’s not such a bad thing, and “Hit the Road” does hit some high notes with clever writing and a few laughout-loud moments — abetted by good chemistry between Alexander and Amy Pietz as Ken’s wife, Margie “Meg” Swallow.
Ken and Meg saw better days as the late-’80s “pop/folk duo” KenJi with their minor hit, “Do Me Do.” As the series opens, they’re fronting the family band The Swallows with their four kids and opening for coke-fueled, over-the-hill rocker Duncan Freedom. They’re playing to half-empty auditoriums but Ken and Meg don’t really care, since they’re desperate to reclaim some semblance of fame while escaping their drab lives in King of Prussia, Pa. (he as a used-car salesman, she as a PTA mom). But their kids, save for 18-year-old Ria (Natalie Sharp), aren’t so enthralled with life on the road and would rather be somewhere else. Teenage son Alex (Nick Marini) is a dim-witted coke dealer; adopted son Jermaine (Tim Johnson Jr.), the group’s lead guitarist, is 15, geeky and suffers from asthma and bloody noses; and youngest daughter Casey (Maddie Dixon-Poirier) is the family’s requisite wiseass who’s smarter than everyone else. You get the picture.
The Swallows, mired in mediocrity, are thrown for a loop when Duncan suddenly dies and the tour is cancelled — just as Ken unveils the official Swallow tour bus. “There’s no No. 2 on the bus,” he says proudly, explaining the vehicle’s lack of a toilet. “That’s a time-honored rock n’ roll tradition.” There’s more scatalogical humor in the second episode, when Ken mistakenly eats “street meat” from a food cart and announces that it’s “the opening act of a full-on digestive drama!” — relieving himself in the dressing-room bathroom of an “American Idol”- type judge who takes offense. Very “Seinfeld”-esque.
Audience Network, looking to make a Netflix-type splash, recently renewed its Stephen King horror series “Mr. Mercedes” and pumped a lot of dough into promoting “Hit the Road” (including a billboard in Times Square).
That’s likely due to Alexander, who brings a proven track record (both in TV and in the theater) and embraces his role with relish — as does Pietz, most recently seen on The CW’s “No Tomorrow.” The younger cast is cookie-cutter predictable, while Jermaine’s geekiness is a bit cartoonish (Johnson gets a chance to up his game in Episode 2, which helps). If you’re into this kind of humor, you’ll enjoy the show.