About.com Rating

The Bottom Line

$#*! My Dad Says takes already thin source material and stretches it even thinner, padding out a Twitter feed with drab sitcom filler. Even the innate charm of William Shatner can’t elevate this moribund comedy about a curmudgeonly father.

Pros

• Always nice to see William Shatner on TV

Cons

• Fails to capitalize on its Twitter inspiration
• Misuses Shatner’s talents
• Other cast members entirely unimpressive

Description

• Premiere airs September 23, 2010, at 8:30 p.m. EST on CBS
• Stars William Shatner, Jonathan Sadowski, Will Sasso, Nicole Sullivan
• Created by David Kohan, Max Mutchnick, Justin Halpern and Patrick Schmacker

Guide Review - '$#*! My Dad Says' Premiere Episode

There’s not a whole lot to build a TV show from in the content of a Twitter feed, so $#*! My Dad Says, based on the popular Twitter feed by Justin Halpern, has to do a lot of work to go from Halpern’s quotes of funny, often profane sayings by his dad to a fully constructed narrative TV show. Unfortunately, whatever was fresh and funny about Halpern on Twitter has been sanitized and worn away by the time it makes it to TV, and the resulting show is no more creative or edgy than any other forgettable sitcom CBS has produced in the last few years. After all that fanfare and effort, all the network has really done is acquire the tired sitcom character of the crotchety old man.

Said crotchety old man is played by William Shatner, which means that he has a bit more liveliness to him than the material provides.

Shatner has honed his out-there shtick masterfully over the last decade or so, but it’s best used as a counterpoint to other substantial, more down-to-earth characters. Boston Legal was best when Shatner’s Denny Crane was teamed with the more rational likes of characters played by James Spader and Candice Bergen. Here, he’s essentially the whole show, even if Jonathan Sadowski is the ostensible co-lead as the son who moves back in with his father after losing his job at a magazine.

The, er, stuff that Shatner’s Ed says is really all the show has going for it, but the bits from Halpern’s Twitter feed are integrated awkwardly, and the rest of the dialogue is thoroughly sanitized for TV-audience consumption. The show around Ed is completely generic, and Sadowski and Will Sasso (as Ed’s sons) barely register, while Nicole Sullivan is her typical shrill, annoying self as Ed’s daughter-in-law. The entire thing is a waste of both the raw humor of Halpern’s original writing as well as Shatner’s innate charm. Like its title indicates, it’s pretty much a bunch of $#*!.

Disclosure: A review screener was provided by the network. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.