@andrewbloom "I have to admit, I was disappointed in this one. I was excited to finally get to Danny DeVito’s joining the show after getting to know the rest of the gang over the show’s first season, and I was pretty underwhelmed by his first outing here."
Exactly my feelings regarding this season's start. I've only recently started watching the show and I knew Danny DeVito would be in it and I was always like "but when does the dude finally joins the gang?!"... And then, this. Sigh! I'm also hopeful that Danny DeVito improves the show, not hampers it (like it seemed to have happened in this episode). The first season was great, the humour was top notch, but this episode definitely wasn't off to a good start, indeed.
@misnomer Yeah, this wasn't necessarily a great start. But I am currently nearly at the end of Season 6, and I can gladly say that DeVito is definitely a great addition to the show, and he just becomes a loonier and loonier presence as things go on. I'm still only halfway through the series, but I'd argue it continues to get better and better as it goes along.
@andrewbloom ah! Thank Heavens for that speckle of light at the end of the tunnel. I'm glad to know things do improve and DeVito proves himself as a fine addition to the show. Cheers for letting me know!
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2017-03-20T22:01:56Z
[5.9/10] I have to admit, I was disappointed in this one. I was excited to finally get to Danny DeVito’s joining the show after getting to know the rest of the gang over the show’s first season, and I was pretty underwhelmed by his first outing here. There’s some comedic juice to the idea of everyone pretending to be disabled in order to get special treatment and having it blow up in their faces, but the show just hits that same gag over and over again to quickly diminishing returns.
There’s shock humor involved, which I definitely like at times, but its melded with hacky sitcom-level storytelling, and that makes it seem like shock for the sake of shock. There’s some amusing moments, mostly Mac and Dennis’s awkwardness when running into an actual disabled person. The irony of the whole gang getting injured at the end of the episode after pretending for so long is solid stuff. And I even enjoyed the quiet thread of Mac losing every competition he’s involved in. But for the most part, every story within the episode is pretty much the same, and the writing isn’t sharp enough to distinguish them. (And the Dennis-Dee rivalry over their parents’ stuff went nowhere.)
I’m still hopefully for DeVito’s contributions to the series, but this wasn’t the best start.