Rob Lowe is returning to TV in a sitcom also starring another TV vet, Fred Savage.
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“John Stamos seems a bit tense and maybe that’s the character, but it’s more uncomfortable than likable”, wrote Kirsten Winering, of Roxborough. That said, after one episode of “Grandfathered“, it’s easy to feel like you’ve seen the first three seasons, especially if Jimmy is going to constantly be presented choices between bedding desirable women and looking after the moppet who has fallen into his lap.
He’s just as impressed by his son’s razzle-dazzle as are the average Boiseans.
The concept of The Grinder could quickly veer into cheesy territory if Savage and Lowe weren’t having such fun in the show.
Savage chimed in somewhat jokingly, “I think it’s a tip of the hat to the golden age of television, when the lawyer shows were written so well and were so well researched and so in depth that Rob can actually survive in the real world based on that”.
In “GRANDFATHERED”, Stamos plays a successful restaurateur and man-about-town named Jimmy Martino. His father is a practicing attorney and one of his sons is in law school. Oh, and by the way, Gerald has a baby. But Jimmy will learn a few valuable lessons from his insta-family as well. Naturally, a guy who tweezes out single gray hairs has trouble even saying the word “grandfather“.
And what would you say is the biggest difference between filming It’s Always Sunny and The Grinder, other than the lack of your husband on set with you?
What’s not so good: All those theatrics in the premiere are about … a rent check.
Vanity Fair: So how did you end up on a show like this?
Rickles shows up later at the restaurant to join Deion Sanders and Lil Wayne. But he’s not the only cameo.
Judging by how numerous tables are occupied, Jimmy has a full house.
The cast is ideal in every way. Or perhaps that’s just how things work in Boise, you are free to believe.
On The Grinder, Rob Lowe stars as famous TV star Rob Lowe Dean Sanderson, whose lawyer TV show, The Grinder, has just ended.
Lowe, who is still so handsome it’s amusing, obviously has the looks for the part, but his performance digs deep into Dean’s shallowness. In fact, Stewart’s attitude toward Dean mirrors that of Robert Barone toward his brother Ray in “Everybody Loves Raymond”.
When Dean and Stewart have their inevitable mid-episode falling-out and Stewart persuades Dean to go back to Hollywood, Lowe gives the flawless reading to Dean’s line: “Congratulations, counselor”. Dean Sr. runs the law firm where Stewart works. Since then, the now 39-year-old father of two has kept himself busy behind the camera as a respected director on shows like “The Goldbergs” (which has drawn comparisons to his “Wonder Years” days) and as a voice-over artist. Stewart is well-studied in the ins and outs of law, but, as we see in his first appearance in a courtroom, he lacks any sort of charisma – he prepares endless note cards, then reads from them in comically speedy and mumbly fashion, to the point where the opposing counselor (played by a show-stealing Kumail Nanjiani) asks Stewart, “I have a question: Have you ever talked before?”
“We’d never met each other or known each other”, revealed Lowe. But Dean’s time on the The Grinder has come to a close, and now he’s adrift on the extended metaphorical highway of life.
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David Wiegand is an assistant managing editor and the TV critic of The San Francisco Chronicle. At 8 p.m., Grandfathered opened to a 1.5 rating among adults 18-49 and 5.3 million viewers at 8 p.m., while lead-out The Grinder nabbed a 1.5 rating in the key demo and 4.9 million viewers.
