Starring: Craig Robinson, Meagan Good, Peri Gilpin, Brandon T Jackson, Tim Bagley, Spencer Grammer
This is like watching a beached whale stranded on the beach, and you know pushing the whale back into the ocean is the best thing possible for it. Sure, you could keep the whale on the beach for a while, and enjoy its majestic beauty, but that wouldn’t be right. Ultimately, you have to set it free.
Yes, Craig Robinson deserves his own show. But not this show. He’s really charming, and engaging, and I’ll probably watch every episode. But… I know the writing is awful, the supporting cast isn’t funny, and the show really just shows how out of touch NBC has become with where sitcoms currently are. For the network that launched a thousand must-see-comedies, Mr Robinson feels oddly dated. Almost like an early 90’s sitcom, like Hangin’ With Mr Cooper or something. This is not a current sitcom.
Mr Robinson is getting a summer burn off, so it’s likely we’ll never see what a second season of this would look like. But I’d go radically different and dump most of the supporting cast and hire new showrunners. That’s the only way this whale is ever going to swim again. You can’t just cast Craig Robinson and put him into a benign sitcom and hope everything works out. Peri Gilpin was funnier on Frasier. Brandon T Jackson was funnier in everything except the Big Momma’s House film he did, and Spencer Grammer’s presence just makes me miss Greek (and find it really odd that Gilpin has now worked with both father and daughter on two radically different shows).
Lets push Craig Robinson back out to sea, shall we? Save a life today. Don’t bother with Mr. Robinson.
FINAL GRADE: C-
