Every now and then a show will come along that will be universally loved by a great number of people for reasons that are hard to define in just a few words even if it’s agreed by everyone that it’s just great. American Housewife isn’t one of those shows. For those that like the show there’s no need for me to apologize since we could go back and forth on what it means to have good taste in TV shows, but nothing would ever come of it. There are typically a few issues with any show that’s been on the air for a short amount of time, but when a program has been given the chance to expand on its premise and to develop its characters and doesn’t seem to do so then there might be a need to take a step back and realize that the reason the show is receiving criticism isn’t because people are being mean, but because there is some genuine need for change.
With that said here are a few improvements that American Housewife could possibly make.
5. It could stand to dump a lot of the cliches.
The opponent of original thought and innovation, cliches are basically what you use when you want to get a point across that’s been made over and over and over again. It’s like comfort food, it doesn’t take any real faith to use and tends to be considered safe and reassuring. But unfortunately the problem with a cliche is that it’s intellectually lazy and even for a TV show it’s something that should be avoided when possible. Otherwise you get a mold that’s easy for other shows to copy as they continue to set the standard and a very low bar for other shows to reach. In this manner we tend to keep getting one show after another that’s hard if not impossible to distinguish from those that came before them. Lara Zarum of Flavorwire might explain this a little better.
4. The whole idea of not fitting in has been done and overdone.
We get it, people don’t want to conform, they want to be themselves, they want to be unique, and they want to resist the need to become the people that they don’t really care for. But the trick there is that by not conforming you might at one point conform anyway since the whole attitude of “I’m me not you and I like it that way” has been done numerous times in the past and as a result it’s become a common formula that too many people have come to use. It’s great to be individualistic in a TV show and to be that unique person that strives to be happy with their own life, but it’s not exactly a new idea.
3. The shows sense of humor falls pretty flat.
It’s easy to see how some jokes just don’t tickle the funny bones of those that find the sense of humor kind of awkward and even a bit off-putting, but there are ways to fix this without getting too fringe or upsetting one’s superiors. The writing pools that exist for these shows would be interesting to walk into since it would seem that some of them are firing on all cylinders when it comes to various jokes and funny moments, while others might as well be aiming a dartboard on which several jokes have been pasted to see which one they’re going to use in today’s episode. Seriously, that seems to be how it’s decided sometimes. Brian Moylan of The Guardian has more to say on this matter.
2. Make the jokes concise and not as drawn out.
My mind goes to Seth MacFarlane’s use of long, drawn out comedic moments in Family Guy as an example, though his go quite a bit further since they stretch into ludicrous territory whereas this show simply makes it uncomfortable before finally moving on. Is there really any need for a joke to outlive its usefulness in the moment? Tell the joke, speak the line, and then move on, there’s really not much call to keep extending it that far as it makes people wonder if there was a deeper point behind what was just said. There might be at times, but a lot of times it would seem that the joke is being drawn out just to be obnoxious.
1. The main characters need a lot more development.
This is a huge point since if you don’t have believable characters…wait for it….then you DON’T HAVE A SHOW. Some folks might argue that this isn’t the case here, that the characters work for them, but then these are the same people that might not agree with Jack Dennison of Ursus that this show is set in the mold of Malcolm in the Middle. If that comparison can be made then it’s a good indication that the characters haven’t been given their own level of development or even their own personas, so it might be time to listen and change things up a bit.
These are a few suggestions based on opinion, but they seem to mirror a few people at least.
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