Immediately after celebrating the end of the Olympics, I tuned in for the pilot of the new NBC show, Growing Up Fisher. (Okay, to be perfectly honest, I started watching the premiere, but I fell asleep before it even really got going. Thank goodness for DVRs.)
At any rate, as I have mentioned on more than one occasion, comedies aren’t really the high point of my television viewing, but I thought the previews looked entertaining. Besides, I saw Daniel Hugh Kelly for a split second in one of the commercials, and I have to support the Hardcastle and McCormick alums. Though, I fear I may have actually missed DHK’s grand moment. Somehow, even though I set up the DVR for tonight’s second ep, it is not on my list of programs. I’m hoping NBC has them online.
But, as you might have guessed since I’m hoping to track down the second episode, I enjoyed the first one. Intellectually, I’m not convinced that a man could go through his entire life hiding the fact that he was blind, and I’m absolutely certain that a blind man couldn’t really parallel park a car, but I thought it was amusing just the same.
Even if the credulity is stretched a bit, though, I still enjoyed it, and I’m chalking that up mostly to some successful casting. Primarily, the young boy in the main role really pulled it off. I thought he did an excellent job at being simultaneously an innocent eleven year old and and a more worldly child who grew up wanting to help his dad as much as possible. And not only that, but Eli Baker, the young man who portrays Henry Fisher, is just a cutie pie.
Anyway, it’s a pretty typical family comedy, with long-married middle-aged folks deciding to divorce, and the way their kids cope with that. The hook that makes this one different is that dad is not only a level-headed, friendly and caring guy, but he’s also been blind since childhood. Yet, Dad made it through not only childhood and puberty, but also found a wife, became an attorney, and raised a family, all while keeping the secret of his blindness. Like I said, I’m not convinced that’s actually possible, but I think it makes a fun setup, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it all plays out.
