The Scandinavian/Swedish style of comedy continues to be adopted by American television stations, and “Steps” is another effort in that direction. Basically, Swedish comedy tends to be darker and more offbeat than the more traditional sitcom formats. ShowTime’s “Shameless” is a good example of Swedish comedy, as it combines the darker side of a dysfunctional family with the single parent father (Frank Gallagher) still present but the oldest daughter (Fiona) running the home.
“Steps” can be presumed to be an abbreviated title for a variety of relationship steps: stepfather, stepmother, step child. The “step mix” is the result of four adults who live in three separate houses, working together to raise three kids that are the result of two divorces. Hopefully, you don’t have to log on to ancestry.com to keep up with who belongs to who in this sitcom.
Goodwin is the first actor cast in this new sitcom as Bea, who is supposed to be a modern hippie. The exact definition of what type of modern hippie she will be playing is something we will have to wait and see. The reason is there appear to be 4 types: people who are modern day copies of the hippies of the 1960’s, an offshoot who are the less political type, those who are known as “techno hippies” whose focus is on a rejection of the 60’s identity, and finally modern hippies who are without a cause, also known as “rippies.” Bea is a parent coach, which makes her more likely to be a techno hippie or of the apolitical variety.
One reason for the move to ABC television is Goodwin’s series “Once Upon a Time” has breathed its last breath and the actors are now out and about looking for new work. Her character Bea is married to a man named Paul, but there is no word on who will be cast as Paul at this time. Todd Holland will be one of the executive producers and also be the director of “Steps.”
Now for its potential success. The ShowTime “Shameless” sitcom hasn’t has a viewership in the 18-49 demographic for its last 12 episodes. Of course, it’s ShowTime, but still. The problem with any series that features young children is that the children get older in real life, so the storylines usually come to an end. This usually requires a new (usually younger) character into the mix, which generally doesn’t work out too well. With three kids in “Steps”, some likely to be teenagers, there might be a storyline shuffle sooner than later.
It’s not clear at this point what Paul, Bea’s husband will be doing. Will he be a stay-at-home dad or will there be scheduling conflicts with both working full time? Since it is a Swedish style sitcom, we can likely expect more than a regular dose of dark divorce tales of woe and resentment — from both the parents and the children. However things turn out, give ABC credit. The experiment might not work out, but it is a change from NBC’s 100th season of “Law and Order — SVU.”
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