First Impressions – The War at Home

What better time to debut a new sitcom entitled The War at Home then on the fourth anniversary of 9/11? I’m sure I don’t have to name what network would do such a thing since they have brought us such quality shows as The Littlest Groom and Who’s Your Daddy. If you ask the people at Fox, the show is reminiscent of All in the Family. Umm, okay. Although calling it Married... with Children but without anything funny would be a little more accurate.

So what we get is yet another dad who is having troubles raising his kids with a wife who also works. The daughter is your token slutty girl except that she’s, as she puts it, technically a virgin. I guess we have Bill Clinton to tanks for that type of clarification. But anyways. Then there is the middle brother who is ambiguously gay. Granted this idea of “is or isn’t he” was a whole lot funnier when it was in a form of a cartoon. Lastly is the youngest boy who… well I’m not entirely sure exactly what he brings to the show.

The casting is fairly uninspiring. Of course it can’t be good when you’re show is headlined by Michael Rapaport most notably from the Popcopy commercial. And that’s pretty much it; can anyone name anything else he’s been in that’s good? His imdb.com page read like a who’s who of movies that no one has seen. The rest of the cast is filled with actors who probably won’t work after this show is canceled, and that may come sooner than later.

The pilot of The War at Home centers on the slutty daughter not being allowed to date a college boy so she pretends to date a black dude named Taye, short for Boo-taye, to get back at her parents. And hilarity doesn’t ensue. The only time I actually laughed during the episode involved a flashback featuring Cherry Pie. To make things worse, there are little vinaigrettes of the characters talking to the camera as if they were on a reality show. Here we are told early on by the sexually ambiguous son that he is, in fact, not gay thus ruining his whole plotline for the rest of the show.

Verdict: I think we have a lead candidate for the first show to be canceled.