Oh, Matt LeBlanc, you could do so much better.
The actor, who was our beloved Joey Tribbiani in a parallel “Friends” universe, returns to our screens on Monday, Oct. 24 with his new CBS sitcom, “Man with a Plan.” The show stars Liza Snyder (“Yes Dear”) as his wife after Jenna Fischer (“The Office) was aptly recast.
The two star as Adam and Andi Burns and they have three children — Kate (Grace Kaufman), Teddy (Matthew McCann), and Emme (Hala Finley). Andi returns to work after many years, leaving Adam in charge. He’s a contractor in his own company and can adjust his work hours depending on his kids' schedule.
His kids, whom he thought were cute and perfect and loving once he usually got home from work, are actually just needy and carefree. Big surprise there! On his first day itself, he realizes just the difficulty of caring for the kids and acts as if he’s met them for the first time.
For after-school snacks, he offers Listerine strips. While dropping the youngest Emme off to school, he tells her to be scared because kindergarten really is brutal. He gets involuntary picked to lead an ice cream sundae fun day thing for her class, meets another dad, Lowell (Matt Cook), whom he immediately disses for being less macho than him.
The show definitely has more downs than it has ups, which is unfortunate because LeBlanc really has a great comic timing. Only if the material matched the talent.
Like I said, LeBlanc is obviously the star of the show. Most of his one-liners are well-timed. He has been on “Friends” for 10 years, and “Episodes” was a success, too, so he does know how to pack a punch. In fact, many of his mannerisms, expressions, dialogue deliveries reminded me of Joey. Despite this, he seems somewhat detached to the show itself.
Snyder is a much better fit on this show than Fischer, who definitely seemed out of place in the original pilot. While I wouldn’t call what the two leads have chemistry, they do seem to click well in their scenes in terms of humor.
However, so much about the plot feels repetitive, which would be fine if the comedy and characters were worth rooting for, but that’s just not the case so far. Some families will relate to the situational comedy but it might not be enough to rake in viewers. I do believe most of the ratings will stem from the fact that LeBlanc heads this show. However, the sitcom will need to much, much better than what it has to offer in its pilot episode.
Final Verdict: Watch it if you want to stay loyal to the “Friends” fan in you, that’s the only reason I am willing to give this show a few episodes and I do hope it gets better from here. Then again, it oddly fits well with CBS shows, especially with "Kevin Can Wait" added to the roster.
"Man with a Plan" premieres on CBS on Oct. 24, 8:30/7:30c. Let me know what you thought of the episode and check back in next week for the full review.
