![]() ![]() ET, respectively, on CW and ABC.It would be easy to put one value in front of you and say that that is the F.U. “Kung Fu” and “Home Economics” premiere April 7 at 8 p.m. But while it features a modern family, at first blush, “Home Economics” is no “Modern Family.” ![]() That adds a little bite to what’s otherwise a pretty breezy exercise, which doesn’t fully exploit the potentially interesting impact of class issues and disparate economic status on sibling rivalries, at least initially, as aggressively or imaginatively as it could.Īll told, the concept and casting have promise. The underlying tension is that Tom, a novelist, is working on a book informed by – what else? – his crazy family. “It’s really … tasteful,” Grace’s Tom lies upon entering the place. Informed by a “Modern Family” vibe, “Home Economics” – which also happens to be set in the Bay Area – focuses on three grown siblings, two of whom (played by Grace and Caitlin McGee) are strapped for cash, while their younger brother (Jimmy Tatro) is awash in tech bucks, living in a house he bought from Matt Damon (yes, that Matt Damon) with a dazzling view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Of those, “Home Economics,” a sitcom starring and produced by Topher Grace, feels potentially more distinctive than “Rebel,” which stars Katey Sagal as a blue-collar crusader without a law degree inspired by Erin Brockovich, who is among its producers. “Kung Fu” kicks off a mini-wave of April broadcast-TV premieres, including a pair of new series this week on ABC. If not, to paraphrase the original show, it’ll be time to leave.Ĭaitlin McGee, Topher Grace and Jimmy Tatro play siblings in ABC's 'Home Economics' (ABC/Temma Hankin) Temma Hankin/American Broadcasting Companies, Inc./ABC Granted, that assessment is based on one episode, and it might be worth sticking around for a couple more to see whether the mythological aspects actually blossom into something more than the premiere suggests. (In between, there was a syndicated revival in the 1990s.) Kim under Greg Berlanti, who oversees the CW’s superhero dramas – feels less like a reboot than a new series that simply borrows the well-known title and spins out a litany of dramatic cliches. Still, “Kung Fu” – developed by Christina M. The timing certainly feels welcome for a series that focuses on an Asian-American family, one with a lot of conventional problems to go with the more fantastic ones – locating the villain who stole the aforementioned sword foremost among the latter. If only someone could stand up to them, perhaps by beating up groups of armed henchmen, and had an ex-boyfriend (Gavin Stenhouse) who happens to work in the D.A.’s office. Still, all is not well in Chinatown, with corrupt forces having endangered her parents’ restaurant business (Tzi Ma plays Nicky’s dad), threatening the local community. Her arrival reopens old wounds about family dynamics, particularly involving her demanding mom (“Crazy Rich Asians’” Kheng Hua Tan), who clearly invested plenty of hopes and dreams in Nicky’s once-promising future. Racing through the plot in the very, very busy pilot episode, the series stars Olivia Liang as Nicky Shen, a young Chinese-American woman who, on a solo trip to China, winds up dropping off the map and entering a Shaolin monastery, where she’s trained for more than three years.Īfter an attack on the monastery – and the theft of a priceless sword – Nicky returns home to San Francisco, just as her sister (Shannon Dang) is about to get married. In this case, a modern-day female lead learns mad martial-arts skills, in an uninspired series whose action and key narrative device owe at least as much to “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” as its half-century-old namesake. The latest batch of TV reboots haven’t had much in common with the source beyond the name, and so it is with “Kung Fu,” which – like the recent “Walker” – CW-izes a familiar TV property in a mostly unrecognizable way. ![]()
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