Jon Cryer headlines ‘Extended Family’
Every so often you have to watch a bad sitcom to remind yourself why you stopped watching them in the first place. Way back when Tony Danza ruled the Earth.
Luckily for us, NBC has gift-wrapped a preview of “Extended Family” (8 p.m., Saturday, TV-14).
The show marks the return of Jon Cryer to network comedy. The star of “Two and a Half Men” appears here as Jim, first seen freaking out because he’s overfed his daughter Grace’s (Sofia Capanna) goldfish and killed it. Sure, he can buy a new one, but this critter was an emotional support fish, purchased to help Grace through the divorce of her parents. Deep.
And he’s just getting started. In glib, fast-talking fashion, Jim explains how he and his wife, Julia (Abigail Spencer), got amicably divorced after 17 years.
How amicable? They threw a party in the same church where they said their vows and invited all their friends. Julia is as casual about this as Jim is, and between them not one word they utter sounds remotely believable.
It’s Grace, all of 13, who becomes the voice of reason here. Or perhaps rage. Only her parents would throw a party after destroying the only family she had ever known. So far, a regular laugh riot.
To complicate matters, Julia has since connected with Trey (Donald Faison, “Scrubs”), the wealthy owner of the Boston Celtics. He hired Julia as a spin doctor after he made a social media faux pas. Then one thing led to another.
It seems that everybody’s job and income is explained except Jim’s. And that’s weird because Cryer has made a very good living playing characters who are more neurotic and goofy than rich or “hot.”
So how did this nebbish land (and lose) a hot wife? To this humble viewer, that mystery is even greater than why a couple would joke about their divorce in front of their kids.
Is this something to sample on the night before Christmas Eve?
Perhaps NBC thought folks would be too busy hanging their stockings by the chimney with care to notice that “Extended Family” was even there.
› Christmas Eve weekend offers us the last time this year to binge on such favorites as “It’s a Wonderful Life” (8 p.m., Sunday, NBC), and of course, the 24-hour marathon of “A Christmas Story” (8 p.m., Sunday), unspooling on TBS and TNT well into Christmas evening.
Much like “The Wizard of Oz” (6:45 p.m., Sunday, TNT), these movies were not exactly blockbusters when they were released on the big screen. Frequent, and what some might describe as relentless, television exposure over the decades has turned them into beloved holiday classics.
It’s kind of a mystery why some films stand the test of time and repetition while other Christmas efforts are consigned to the attic of our memory with various forsaken ornaments.
Also lurking in the more forgotten corners of our nostalgia are the holiday-themed episodes of popular but long-since canceled series. Luckily for us, Crackle, the FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming Television) platform, has compiled a handy catalog of Christmas episodes from the shows it streams on demand.
Want to check out a young Johnny Depp in a festive setting? Look for the “Christmas in Saigon” episode (season 2, episode 11) of “21 Jump Street.”
The untitled Christmas episode of “The Beverly Hillbillies” (season 1, episode 13) sees the extended Clampett clan leave Beverly Hills for the first time to return to the Hooterville/BugTussle area for a holiday feast fraught with romantic possibilities. Let’s hope