Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Single Parents’ On ABC, A Comedy About A Group Of Single Parents Who Support Each Other

It didn’t take Elizabeth Meriwether long to find another project after her first show, New Girl, ended. In Single Parents, Meriwether pairs with one of her best writers, J.J. Philbin, to create a comedy about a group of parents who support each other because otherwise, they’d be on their own. Will this ensemble reach the heights that New Girl did?

SINGLE PARENTS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: It’s the first day of school at Hilltop Elementary School. Will Cooper (Taran Killam) is dropping off his daughter Sophie (Marlow Barkley) and gives her a “magical amulet” to help her at her new school. “Did you make this out of Post-Its?” asks Sophie.

The Gist: We also see a few other single parents in the first grade class: Angie D’Amato (Leighton Meester) drops off her super-clingy son Graham (Tyler Wladis), Poppy Banks (Kimrie Lewis) sees off her fashion-conscious son Rory (Devin Trey Campbell), and Douglas Fogerty (Brad Garrett) drops off his aggressively-retro twins Amy and Emma (Ella and Mia Allan). Also, a young guy named Miggy Park (Jake Choi) is there with his baby. Why? “He’s goes where we go” says Angie.

This group of single parents has known each other since their kids were little (with Miggy being new to the group), and they band together for support, despite their different backgrounds. When Will tries to get them to sign up for class parent responsibilities, they all say no, citing the fact that they can barely keep things together as is, having to work and take care of their kids by themselves.

But they see something with the newly (and reluctantly) divorced Will; he’s entered “the vortex,” where he’s so dedicated to his daughter’s life that he stops being a man. For instance, he wears comfy clothes and whisper-sings songs from Moana to Sophie, even if it embarrasses her. The furniture in his house is of the beanbag variety. Angie and company are so depressed by what they see that they take it upon themselves to get Will a date (in exchange for free babysitting, of course). Let’s just say that the date goes well… then it doesn’t.

Our Take: Single Parents is created by New Girl’s Elizabeth Meriwether and J.J. Philbin, and this has the same style: overlapping dialogue, lots of repeated jokes, and an ensemble that’s thrown together but becomes a family. There’s lots to like here, from the cast to the fact that there’s a deep well of character stories to mine going forward.

But Meriwether and Philbin have to get past a couple of sitcom trip-ups first. One of which are the preternaturally smart-aleck six-year-olds. It’s tiresome to hear little kids on sitcoms talk like they’re world-weary teenagers. Yes, we know that kids are smarter and more connected than ever. But here, they almost seem smarter than the parents.

The other thing that needs to be avoided is to make this group too tightly bonded too soon. Will needs to fight the urge to become a hardened, worn-out single dad and keep some of his sensitivity, and folks like Douglas should stay old-school as long as possible. They need to avoid the “Winston problem” they ran into on New Girl, where they had defined the other characters so well but didn’t know what to do with Lamorne Morris’ character for the first two seasons, so they just made him cartoonishly weird. We can see that happening with Miggy, who can’t seem to come to terms with the fact that he’s a 20-year-old with a kid and still thinks he can live like an overgrown teenager.

However, Single Parents will live and die with the cast — who doesn’t like watching Brad Garrett be grumpy-hilarious? — and the pilot shows a budding chemistry that will help the show in its first season.

Sex and Skin: Will’s date is a bit aggressive, to say the least.

Parting Shot: After vowing to get out of the vortex — “I’ll drink coffee after 4 PM!” — he tries to throw out the horrible mermaid bag his ex-wife left behind. It takes a few tries, but he finally gets it.

Sleeper Star: Despite what we said about the kids, we did like Campbell as Rory, especially because he’s built a relationship with Garrett’s crusty character Douglas.

Most Pilot-y Line: The recurring joke where Will tries to say “It takes a village” and the rest of the group urges him to not say was leaned on a little too much.

Our Call: STREAM IT. We know that Meriwether and Philbin are fine writers and the cast is great. Here’s hoping they find their groove soon.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Watch Single Parents on Hulu