Who Would Want to Know How to Live with Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life)?

Article first published as Who Would Want to Know How to Live with Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life)? on TheTVKing.com

ABC begins a new sitcom late this season as it premieres How to Live with Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life) this week. Polly (Sarah Chalke, Scrubs) leaves her irresponsible husband, Julian (Jon Dore, The Jon Dore Show), and, with her daughter, Natalie (Rachel Eggleston, Summer Snow), in tow, moves back in with her mother, Elaine (Elizabeth Perkins, Weeds), and step-father, Max (Brad Garrett, Everybody Loves Raymond).

If the premise seems simple enough, it is. There isn't much groundbreaking about the concept, or how the episodes play out. Skipping the first six months of the living arrangement, the series has Polly already adjusted to the situation, and having no intention of leaving her haven. In the first episode, she even uses her reluctant parents as babysitters while she goes on a date, which of course goes wrong, in a skrewball type of way.

This is a little like the beginning of The New Normal, as the main character of that show also flees her joke of a husband, but at least that series has some direction and driven, with the protagonist wanting to better herself. We don't get that much from Polly, who doesn't seem very independent.

Yet, there is a certain level of charm here. Perkins is wonderfully hilarious as the free-spirited mother who never settled down, and she has great chemistry with Garrett, who is sort of the stabilizing factor in the household. Chalke's Polly is also zany, so we can see how her mom has rubbed off on her, but it grounded enough to show Max's influence, too, since he helped raise her. Although it's hard to see how Polly could have turned out as well as she did in the household, it's the dynamic between these three that sell the show. Since they are all very gifted comedic performers, it ends up being pretty funny.

It certainly isn't the situations that provide the draw. Polly works in a grocery store, and her co-workers are interchangeable line-deliverers in the pilot. The date that she goes on in the first half hour is definitely predictable and formulaic. Her ex-husband, who can't stop making up excuses to hang around, is a very rote character, and there doesn't seem to be much reason to include him at this juncture, and certainly not as a main character.

The tone is sort of Better Off Ted-ish, which is kind of a modern style that works when executed well, but the story being as pedestrian as it is stretches one's patience. Because Better Off Ted had a laboratory and goofy experiments, it was brilliant, even if under-watched and short-lived. But the same type of behavior doesn't connect as solidly in a family environment.

Because ABC has launched the series in April, it doesn't bode well for the network's confidence in their offering. And yet, with Chalke, Perkins, and Garrett on board, it definitely deserves to see the light of day, at least for a little bit.

Basically, How to Live with Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life) is a somewhat entertaining, but not particularly smart show, that could rise above its humble beginnings solely on the shoulders of the terrific trio of actors hired. We'll wait and see if they can salvage things, or if this will quickly be a forgotten footnote.

How to Live with Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life) airs Wednesdays at 9:30 p.m. ET on ABC.