FOXTV's most talked-about new comedy has finally debuted.
Leave it to Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane to court some major controversy before his new Fox series Dads even hit the air, thanks to critics' scathing (to put it mildly) reviews and a request from the Media Action Network for Asian Americans to reshoot scenes featuring Brenda Song's character Veronica dresses up as an Asian schoolgirl to woo potential Asian investors. (No scenes were reshot.) And that's just one of a slew of racial and sexual remarks made during the 22 minutes.
But did Dads feel edgy and a little wrong in a good way to you or like a one-season-and-done sitcom from the '90s...or worse, like a knockoff of William Shatner's infamously horrible S--t My Dads Says? That is the question we're asking you in our latest Save It or Sink It poll...
The premise of Dads is pretty simple: Two best friends/video-game entrepreneurs Eli (Seth Green) and Warner (Giovanni Ribisi) have their lives turned upside-down when their eccentric (to put it politely) and unfiltered fathers (Peter Riegert and Martin Mull) show up. They're loud, they're obnoxious, they're invasive, they're sometimes racist. Basically, they are classic MacFarlane characters, but it seems that some things are just easier to hear coming out of an animated character's mouth rather than a real person's. (Oddly enough, Dads would feel right at home airing alongside CBS' 2 Broke Girls and Two and a Half Men, no?)
What we can tell you is that the second episode is actually pretty darn funny and made us laugh out loud more than once. It definitely improves, but the question is whether or not viewers will want to indulge in seconds if the pilot left a bad taste in their mouths. Fox president Kevin Reilly is hoping they, as well as critics, do, saying, "Here's a thing about Dads that I really ask you to put in context. That's a pilot. You know the lineage of these writers. They come out of Family Guy. They are the best writers. These guys are going to try to test a lot of boundaries. They are going to try to be equal-opportunity offenders."
At the Summer TCA press tour, executive producer Mike Scully stressed that Dads isn't setting out to offend anyone. "We don't want the show to be the racial insult comedy show," he said. "It's a comedy about fathers and sons…anytime you're doing a show, for the first six episodes, you're still improving."
Now we turn it over to you: Will you stick around to see if Dads improves, or were you already impressed? Vote in our latest Save It or Sink It poll and then head on down to the comments to discuss Dads with your fellow TV lovers.