Drama
Alien: Earth
FX’s ‘Alien: Earth’ is just the latest graphically violent entry in the already graphically violent ‘Alien’ franchise.
CBS has CSI. ABC has unconventional comedies about family life such as The Middle, Modern Family and No Ordinary Family. CBS routinely adds new procedurals to bulk up its crime cred. ABC adds new sitcoms to try to wring a few more wry chuckles out of fans.
Scripted by Friends writer Shana Goldberg-Meehan, Better With You packs quite a lot of that old sitcom’s rapid pace, character interplay and, well, a few of its jokes, too. It’s all centered around a trio of couples from the same family, all of whom are at three completely different stages of life when it comes to that lovin’ feeling.
Oldest sis Maddie and her nine-year live-in beau, Ben, are the couple at the middle of this love teeter-totter. They’re not married (“a valid life choice,” they assure anyone who asks) and come off as the most buttoned-up and self-conscious of the group.
Twentysomething sibling Mia has only been with her guy Casey (a goofy rocker sort who plays in “an avant-garde metal band with a performance art component”) for a short while. And as this series gets under way, this free-spirited pair is everything Maddie and Ben aren’t—feverishly in love, impulsive, pregnant and determined to get hitched.
Way over on the been-there-done-that side of the relational equation are the girls’ parents, Vicky and Joel, who’ve been married for 35 years and are now as blandly crusty in their affections as a dried-up casserole that’s been left in the back of the fridge for too long.
Standard situation comedy ensues.
The generational divide often reveals itself through brief, tag team scenes that intentionally echo one another. For instance, while Mia and Casey will sweep a kitchen countertop’s contents to the floor to make room for spur-of-the-moment lovemaking, Maddie and Ben will have the same impulse but end up cleaning the kitchen. Vicky and Joel will funnel their passion into sharing a piece of chocolate cake, blurting out double entendres as they eat.
That little example illustrates this comedy’s strengths and weaknesses. The contrasting views on love and relationship can be funny and ring true. We can even learn a thing or two from them. But the approach to some of the sexual issues on hand and even to marital commitment itself can veer far afield from positive family-hour viewing. It’s crude enough, actually, to prompt television critic Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times to say, “Wednesday has become family comedy night on ABC—which is not to say a night of comedies for the family.”
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
Mia’s wedding day is drawing nigh, and her parents are obsessing—driving everyone crazy. But then Maddie introduces Mia to one of the city’s top wedding planners. The seasoned planner wows everyone at first, but mid-job she announces her own engagement and starts stealing all of Mia’s special plans.
Ben realizes that he and Maddie have been living together for so long he’s lost his “flirting muscle.” Maddie prompts him to get back “in shape.” After all, she flirts to get favors from shop owners all the time. So Ben starts toning up by hitting on the yogurt shop girl. Naturally, the flirtatious talk gets out of hand. Even Dad hits on the wedding planner. And when Ben reports that he used to be the “king of flirting,” and that he flirted the pants off Maddie, she responds with, “It wasn’t that hard back then—I was the queen of taking my pants off.” Casey drinks a beer. And God’s name is misused.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
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