I LOVE this show!!! I saw previews for it all summer & I thought it was going to be so stupid...but then I watched a few episodes...
Now, I am NOT a sitcom fan. I find most of them so boring and dumb. There are a few I've genuinely loved, like Friends and Everybody Loves Raymond. Out of Practice is a classic in the making.
First of all, the pairing of Henry Winkler & Stockard Channing is BRILLIANT.
Second, the humor keeps me in stitches. Last week I was watching from my gym, where there are about 20 TV's to choose from, and you can plug in headphones to the machine you're using and pick which TV to watch from. I was watching this show & laughing so hard I had people looking at me like I was crazy. I've never seen such great use of irony as a comedic vehicle before. The humor is simply brilliant.
Third, at first glance the characters in the show are pretty generic...the divorced parents, the womanizing son, the "underachieving" son, & the lesbian daughter. But the character development becomes apparent in just a few episodes & each one brings life to the show.
Fourth, being a lesbian myself I REALLY like a gay character being more than comic relief in a show. I relate a lot to this particular aspect of the show because of how MY family reacts to me being gay. In my experience, the reactions from the parents and the siblings are dead on. This being said...I don't think the GENERAL public is ready for a gay themed storyline being this prominent in a sitcom. The majority of the public simply wouldn't understand them & would even see such a prominent gay storyline as "in your face". I REALLY want this show to last several years, so my only piece of advice to the directors would be to cut back on all the lesbian references. Plus, I'd like to know more about the life of the daughter, besides the fact that she's a lesbian.
The bottom line is that this is a great show and is worthy of a look. I honestly think this has the potential to be a GREAT sitcom.
