Colin Hanks (Fargo) and Zoe Lister Jones (New Girl) are Greg Short and Jen, a couple that makes the mistake of ignoring their obstetrician’s advice and peeking at Jen’s southerly region in the days after their first child is born.
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Announcing itself with the legend “One big family”.
The show – which has attracted such talents as James Brolin, Colin Hanks, and Dianne Wiest – is actually not exactly like Modern Family in structure, and the stories are often told as “independently as possible”.
The good news is there is palpable chemistry and affection among the actors, who all have impeccable comic timing.
While the first episode of “Life in Pieces”, premiering Monday at 8:30 p.m.in the plum post-“Big Bang Theory” slot, doesn’t immediately inspire the same confidence as the ABC series does, what it does have in common with it is a big, ludicrously talented cast who elevate the pilot material in ways that a lesser ensemble couldn’t have managed.
The third story follows Heather (Betsy Brandt, “Breaking Bad“) and Tim (Dan Bakkedahl) as they take their oldest son to college, and dad confesses he lost his virginity to couch cushions. By introducing its model of the sitcom family, Life In Pieces recognizes the limitations of the form it’s working in-and, in the first episode anyway, gets out of each before it wears out its welcome.
The half-hour format is jampacked because it comprises four individual stories. Middle child Matt (Thomas Sadoski, “The Newsroom“) has a budding romance with Colleen (Angelique Cabral), but their style is cramped by the financial problems that find him still living at home with his parents and her with her ex-fiancé (a very amusing Jordan Peele). Again, it’s refreshing.
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Adler plans the same type of universe for his guest star characters on Life in Pieces. Intoned over flashback clips of moments from the show we’ve just watched to hammer the theme home, it’s a heavy-handed and too on-the-nose summation of what had been a more nuanced introduction to what Life In Pieces is going for. And no one on Life in Pieces is doing that. The quick segments and Modern Family style make it easy to digest, and the comedy seems a bit more relatable in some of its dismal quirks. The scene also offered viewers a glimpse into how this extended family interacted, which was incredibly important because you can’t have a series about an extended family that doesn’t explore familial bonds.
