Last Man Standing is Tim Allen's return to TV, his follow up to the mildly amusing Home Improvement. The latter also aired on ABC and Allen made sure he was the 'big dog' there by surrounding himself with light weights thereby explaining why, all these years later, you either don't know his co-stars names or are left asking, "Whatever happened to Patricia Richardson?"
Nancy Travis has the role of "wife" this go-round. Vanessa is as poorly written as the role of Jill but Travis is no yokel nor is she trying to discover a talent. She's a functioning actress with a reserve of talent and then some. So even when the role is completely underwritten (such as "Co-Ed Softball"), Travis can still bring home the laughs.
She can help the show tread water; however, she can't make it float.
When we saw the first two episodes, we couldn't believe how awful the show was. It was so bad that reviewing it honestly would've felt like abuse. We asked a friend at ABC what the deal was and he assured us that the show was getting better.
He didn't lie. The first two were unfunny and unwatchable. Then it moved to unfunny but watchable. Now it's funny.
Half of it anyway.
The problem's no longer Tim. Writing and recovering his sense of pacing has made Mike Baxter seem like a character and not just a plot device.
The problems revolve around Outdoor Man, the sportings good store that Mike works out. Every thing that could be wrong about that setting is. A bunch of bad actors in poorly written roles and you top that off with Hector Elizondo attempting to turn every moment into high drama and it's just too much.
How bad is Hector? Except for episode eight, Life With Lucy bad. In fact, the entire store setting is Life With Lucy bad. Including its all male staff and their 1962 problems.
1962 problems?
The store softball team, in episode five, must go co-ed or be tossed out of the league. This leads to a lot of time with a lot of bad actors fretting over their masculinity. News flash, you're playing "softball." Not baseball. You can pretend to 'man' that up all you want but the reality is you're still pitching underhanded.
Time and again, the store and it's all male employees (Elizondo refers to a Denise in shipping in one episode) are not just dull, they're annoying. With the exception of Kyle (who dates Mike and Vanessa's oldest daughter), they're all in that vague 30-60 age group and stocky. As though the casting call went something like, "Tim's very sensitive about his expansive frame so we're looking for really homely." It's really not funny to watch these men who delude themselves that they're doing 'manly' work as they . . . work at a store . . . as sales clerks.
It's really not funny when these portly, slovenly, unshaved slobs start picking on Kyle or laughing at him as Elizondo or Allen pick on him. In fact, what's going on is inappropriate -- legally inappropriate. Another reason to drop that setting.
Is this really the work environment Disney wants to portray? Where the owner of a company (Alizondo) and the man who picks to run (Allen) target and bully a single employee (Kyle), repeatedly mocking his masculinity? Holding him up for ridicule in front of the other workers?
(For information on workplace bullying, click here for the Workplace Bullying Institute.)
When the show focuses on Mike's family, it's funny -- Travis and the daughters, the neighbors who show up for a crime watch meeting, the lesbian couple that just moved in. It also makes Tim Allen come off better. He's looser, he's funnier. By contrast, when he's at Outdoor Man the show starts giving off the scent of The Paul Reiser Show.