Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Early review of Sons of Tucson (FOX)

Sons of Tucson is one of next year original projects and I wanted it to be good, even more when I heard Tyler Labine (from Reaper) was joining the cast as a lead. It's not that I'm a huge fan of him, but he does have a lot of potential.

The father of the brothers Gundersons, a wealthy big shot banker recently got arrested for fraud leaving his three kids by themselves. One thing is sure, they are not going to foster care and that's why they are going to need help from an adult, one that doesn't have anything better to do than to pretend to be their father. That "adult" is Ron, a low-life salesman/hustler with no future that will later lose his job, home and girlfriend in the same day.

With a promising concept like this one, I was expecting a lot, probably because I believe it would be easy creating good and funny storylines around it. And yet, I was already feeling redundancy in the second part of the pilot. A thirty year old constantly being outsmarted, no matter how dumb he is, by a twelve year old, no matter how smart he is, will get old faster than I thought.

I just don't see Tyler Labine playing a dad just yet and this is just one of the things that doesn't feel right. It's a comedy therefore I don't mind letting go a few extravagances, but Sons of Tucson has too much of them to be compelling enough on the long-term.

Still, it was a rather funny script and I think it will work better on screen as the writing wasn't fantastic and some good camera work could make that script funnier than it is.

All in all, Sons of Tucson is the perfect example that a good concept with a few goofs and amusing one liners doesn't make a great show, well, it does sometimes, Sons of Tucson isn't there just yet.

4 comments:

  1. Tyler belongs in Reaper, but then again, his character (Sock) hasn't been developed as it should this season, and his crush on (and sub-sequent banging of) his step-sister was a very awful storyline. Maybe he's sore and that's the reason he's been saying to Reaper fans around Facebook that we all should accept the fact that it won't get another season.

    I like Sock, but then again, if Tyler doesn't like to be on Reaper anymore, the show can go on without him.

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  2. Sock IS Reaper. Without him it's nothing. Accept the fact that Reaper is pretty much over and move on...

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  3. He knew Reaper was going to get shit-canned.

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  4. I've seen the pilot, and it's very funny. Tyler Labine is spot-on as the pseudo-dad, and his interactions with the kids are hilarious. He might not be old enough to play a dad yet, but that's one of the things that makes it funny. His character is what I would call a "charming, scheming slacker", who could probably be a top notch con-man if he wanted to be, but is too lazy to put that much effort into his schemes. So the fact that he can pass himself off as the "father" of three equally charming, scheming kids is a credit to Labine and his character's likability. I'll miss Bert Wysocky and Reaper, but if you want a dose of funny Labine, catch Sons of Tucson.

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