Ray Romano on Parenthood

This show is incredible. It is wonderfully written with a huge likable cast. Before now Craig Nelson has been my favorite actor in the show, his role as Gus, the family patriarch, is wonderful.

In the new season, now three weeks in we are blessed with Ray Romano joining the cast. He plays a photography studio owner who employs Sarah Braverman.

We love Ray Romano in our family, we still rage against the cancellation of Men of a Certain Age, but my wife does not want his character to end up with Sarah. She would prefer Sarah stay with her boy toy, the younger schoolteacher she is currently engaged to. I told her that his fate was sealed when he insisted on being in the family portrait. The Braverman grandmother, played by Bonnie Bedelia, has had a long rule against boyfriends and significant others being in the yearly portrait. One must marry into the picture. Still he talked his way into it and inevitably sealed his fate.

So much is always going on in this show, and this season is no different. Still here is one vote wishing that Ray Romano goes from a guest star on a short arc to a full member of the cast. He is brilliant in everything he does. As we learn more about his character it is interesting to see that Romano can do more than comedy and easy schtick. He is a much more nuanced actor than one would assume.

However it works out this is must see television in our house. Our middle son even comes out of his cave to watch this with us each week. It must be doing something right.

Parenthood

We watched a couple episodes of this new series on NBC last week. Our local cable company on demand has all the episodes available and m wife and I watched a couple last week. I was very impressed. This series best known for being the first new series in the post Jay Leno ten pm time slot is a show that we have to hope catches on. A wonderful cast filled with faces you know and names you might not but for me the highlight is Craig Nelson as the family patriarch. An aging hippy who still expects his grandson to straighten up and fly right but once he is brought into the understanding that the child has a real issue he steps up and does all he can. Perhaps we as men identify as being gruff on the outside and mellow on the inside. We plan to watch the rest of the episodes and I hope we are not disappointed with the longevity of the series.

For me I have made the decision that with all the options we have I no longer will watch shows that do not bring me some kind of value in return. I have no need to see Jack Bauer kill or the narcissistic doctors on Nip Tuck. I sometimes think I am turning into my parents and wish to watch the Waltons or Little House on the Prairie. Those shows are not coming back, and Parenthood certainly would not be that show, my parents would not have approved of the joke of the four grown siblings smoking a joint in the school on a parent night.

The show however is worth watching. We will continue