The comedic possibilities of a large Irish family would seem endless.
Guess what - they ended with this waste of 22 minutes.
Laurie Metcalf is a funny woman but not in this show. The husband / father is a weak, humorless twit.
The rest of the family is an unlikeable bunch and of course the focus of everything is centered on the one homosexual son. Like being gay is so funny. Like how many sitcoms don't already include a gay character in a desperate attempt to garner laughs.
Once upon a time, pilots of shows like this were run before trial audiences in major cities. The show would be played in a hotel meeting room on several monitors to an audience of 100 or so invited guests. Based on their spontaneous reactions, follow-up Q&A and written feedback, a show would make it to air or not - or it would be tweaked and retried or it would bite the dust right then and there.
If THE McCARTHYS ever went through such a trial focus group, I don't know how it ever got a green light to air.
Horrible show that was cancelled after just 11 episodes.
