JudgeJudyIsMyJam

The only reason I stopped to watch this movie was William Fichtner. I think he's a great actor.

Wile I understand he was supposed to portray a person who is timid and unsure in his skin, the result was someone who spent the whole time shuffling and doddering around like Ozzy Osbourne. It was so unnatural and uncomfortable to watch. More than once, I wondered if the character had a backstory of being in some kind of dibillitating accident. (Proven to be untrue when he lept over a tall fence...) And even a really good actor couldn't save this script. His wife acts like a high-powered executive, but she's...a teacher? I don't understand why they threw the son in the script; he felt like an afterthought. I suppose it was to create an air of jealousy, and further showing the gap in age between Mike and Jenna.

This is a really clumsy movie and Fichtner is capable of so much better.

I'm on the second episode of the first season and am *this close* to throwing in the towel. It's AWFUL. I love Ernie Hudson, which was why this show caught my attention in the first place, but I'm embarrassed for him, and the other veteran actors saddled with this mess!

The only way I'll get through any more episodes is if I make up about 10 different drinking games.

The script is horrible. For example, this exchange between brother-in-laws: "I need you to do something for me, but it's personal." "So you want me to do something...personal...for you." "Yeah." I could stop my remote at any part of this series and the script would be just as abysmal. In the first episode, the dad yells at his daughter that he sent her to boarding school to keep her out of trouble. She screams back at him that he didn't send her to boarding school, he sent her to assassin school. (Wha???) In some areas, it seems to be improvised, which makes it really choppy and takes the viewer out of the storyline (or rather, "storyline").

And oh my goodness, the production value. The sound goes in and out. I kept turning up the volume because the sounds fades when people are talking, to the point that I can't hear them at all. But within a very short time, the volume blasts up. Was the boom operator drunk?

I think I'll just watch it as a comedy. That might work.

The difference with this show is that there's some really interesting and intriguing engineering going on. (Love that there's a woman engineer, by the way!) It's smart and the designs they create really do seem to be mindful of the family needs, not just what the designers want to to do flex their designy muscles. I flipped through the episodes before I watched any of them, and immediately wished there were episodes centered on designing for kids - more adult stuff, but after watching the episodes, I can say that even the stuff they do for kids is pretty interesting, and not just cutesy stuff. It definitely made me think about a few things I would want to do at my own home.

Hopefully new episodes are on their way!