Growing Up Fisher – First episodes

A new comedy series this season in the USA is ‘Growing Up Fisher’. This series is based on the true life story of creator DJ Nash ('Up All Night') and shows his life right after his parents decided to divorce. A special story cause his father is blind, but despite his disability he decided to live life to the fullest. Because the role of the mother was taken over after the pilot episode, I decided to watch the first two episode to see how much that would affect the series.

The two most important characters in ‘Growing Up Fisher’ are son Henry (Eli Baker) and his father Mel Fisher (J.K. Simmons, ‘The Closer’). The story of the first episode starts right before Henry’s parents decided they would get a divorce, and ends a short while after they made this decision. The rest of the show focusses on the new life of all of the family members. Henry, who always looked up to his dad and helped him with everything life threw at him. Now sees his job laying in the paws of guide dog Elvis, who dad bought after moving out. Henry’s mother Joyce (Jenna Elfman, ‘Dharma & Greg’) on the other hand is reliving her youth despite of what her daughter Katie (Ava Deluca-Verley) thinks about that. There’s also an ensemble role for Lance Lim who plays Henry’s best friend Runyen.

The series is described to be a comedy show. Though there were a few funny scenes here and there, I wouldn’t exactly call it a comedy myself. Not once did I laugh out loud, or was I taken by surprise due to some of the events that took place. The story is entertaining, but that’s about it. The cast change after the pilot episode is also a bit strange. We see Parker Posey as mother Yvonne during the first episode but she was replaced by Jenna a little later on while filming the series. The two women don’t exactly look alike and also played the part fairly different in my opinion. Although they both did a good job, I found Jenna to be more eccentric as Yvonne than Parker. And since this is more how Yvonne should be, I think she is my favorite out of the two actresses.

Mel is a lawyer, who pushed himself through law school while being blind. He now works at a successful law firm together with his brother, who is one of the few people who know Mel is blind. Mel never told anyone but his family about his disability, but now with the divorce and Elvis coming into his live he is forced to make some changes. How he handles this, is something we see during the second episode. Henry’s love life is also a topic in the series. He wants a girlfriend but seems to have some communication problems whenever he tries to talk to a girl. His friend Runyen helps him out with this, which causes some strange things to happen every once in a while.

The acting of the kids is good, and the chemistry between the cast members is fine as well. The story is different, and because it’s based on a true story, which is somewhat interesting as well. Although there aren’t that many bad things to say about the series, it still didn’t make me want to watch the next episode. The comedy aspect is just slightly present, and it’s also very unclear how much of the series is autobiographic. Some situations come across as quite unbelievable, but I’m not sure whether or not these were made up or actually happened in the life of the creator. Because of all of this I’m keeping my grade for this series neutral. ‘Growing Up Fisher’ isn’t a bad show, but it has to do a little bit better to convince me of its success.