Reviews By Apop: Fuller House

[apophis775]

So, I watched the first 2 episodes of Fuller House.
The first one was filled with an attempt to put every possible reference to the previous show they could possibly fit into 35 minutes. It spent the entire episode setting up an "inversion" of the plot for the first series. Something that really irked me, was that they constantly removed the very top of the heads of people when they were doing 2-shots (especially those with DJ). Also, not as noticeable, but a majority of the child actors seem to "Scream" their lines at the camera, and the eye-lines of most of the non-professionals that are returning (such as DJs boyfriend) are annoyingly never lined up properly with the characters they are addressing.

The second episode, becomes even more cringe-worthy. It's a Re-hash of an old plot, where DJ is moved in with Steph, and then runs away, instead being the Max and Jackson. Max continues screaming his lines directly into the camera, however the story rotates around Jackson. Near the end, there's a final point at which there was actually ABOUT to be some interesting character development, when the show gets serious for about 20 seconds, when everyone confronts Jackson as to why he ran away, and he reveals the motivation. However, due to it being a sitcom, they gloss over the situation with him having literally 2 lines of dialogue for the conclusion of an episode that centered literally around him (even the B-plot involved him), in exchange for the standard "hug it out ending" and a random 4th-wall break by Jesse who literally entered the scene to make that specific 4th-wall break.

Honestly, I will be VERY surprised if this is picked up for a second season. The first episode was not bad as a reunion episode, but took an AWFULLY long time to complete the "setup" for the actual series. The second episode, was again, a direct nod to the previous series, but seems to be missing a lot of what made the show what it was. They try to duplicate the Jesse/Joey/Danny mechanic with Steph/Kimmy/DJ with "mediocre" success, and the Dj/Steph/Michelle mechanic with Jackson/Max/Baby but it doesn't seem to fit as well since Ramona (Kimmys daughter) is a "wildcard" character that so far seems to be nothing more than a reason for them to have Jackson and Max move into the same room (while giving the baby it's own room). She has probably 6 lines in the entire episode (which, to their credit, is double she had in the previous episode).

I will say, "diehard" fans will probably love the series at first, but I expect it will slowly get tiring, and I'm not sure there are enough fans that stick with the slow long enough to warrant an additional season.