• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, March 1, 2016

ABC’s newest sitcom “The Real O’Neals” has everything we have come to expect from network sitcoms. And that’s not a compliment.

First order of business: The dreaded narrator. It really does boggle the mind that so many network sitcoms insist on using this device again and again and again to say basically the same things again and again and again.

“The Real O’Neals,” premiering Wednesday night with two episodes at 8:30 and 9:30 Eastern, is narrated by this TV family’s teen-age son, Kenny (played by Noah Galvin).

I couldn’t believe my ears when previewing the premiere episode and it started out with the voice of Kenny saying: “This is the story of my family …”

There really must be some sort of manual or guidebook -- at ABC especially -- that dictates that all sitcoms must start out with a narrator introducing a premiere episode with the words: “This is [“my house” or “my dad” or “my family”].

The reason I get so fixated on this device is because it always feels as if the network and the creators of these shows are insulting my intelligence, or at the very least, underestimating it. Of course it’s your family or your house or your dad, I feel like screaming at this narrator. In sitcoms like this, these things become apparent in the first half-minute. So why do we need a narrator to spell it out for us? This is television. You don’t have to tell me. Just show me.

Eventually, we learn -- from a combination of narration and other elements -- that the O’Neals referenced in the show’s title are an Irish-Catholic family living in Chicago. Dad (Jay Ferguson -- who played Stan Rizzo in “Mad Men”) is a Chicago cop. Mom (Martha Plimpton) is a strict-Catholic stay-at-home mother (at least in the first two episodes I watched). There are three kids -- the aforementioned Kenny, a brother named Jimmy (Matt Shively) who wrestles on the Catholic school team and a younger, nerdy sister, Shannon (Bebe Wood).

In the premiere episode, it took just 7 minutes and 40 seconds for the word “vagina” to turn up in the script when a friend of Mrs. O’Neal’s complains that she thinks she pulled a muscle in her vagina in a cardio class. The word returns about six minutes later when Kenny admits, “vaginas scare me!”

Here again, you feel like obtaining the sitcom-writing manual referenced earlier to confirm your suspicion that this book instructs sitcom writers to make sure they use the word “vagina” and/or “penis” in the premiere episode of every comedy series they write for.

Kenny’s fear of female genitalia (Google says there’s a word for this: “eurotophobia”) stems from the fact that he’s gay. It’s something he has never admitted to anyone, but as anyone knows who has seen the promos for this show on ABC these last few weeks, Kenny will come out in the premiere episode of “The Real O’Neals.” 

That’s what the show is about. “The Real O’Neals” is about a family that seems perfect on the outside, but in reality, they’re all hiding secrets from each other. That’s where the “real” in “The Real O’Neals” comes from. Not only does Kenny tell his family that he is “really” gay, but in the same family meeting, Mom and Dad confess that they’re in marriage counseling and probably getting a divorce. In addition, Jimmy the high school wrestler has an eating disorder and Shannon is a thief.

So things fall apart. And at the moment they do, the show suddenly becomes a whole lot better. The change was so abrupt that I wrote in my notes: “Suddenly, about halfway through, it became something else, something better.” It was a very rare phenomenon -- a sitcom morphing from “dumb” to “smart” in what seemed like the blink of an eye.

From that moment on, the narration didn’t bother me. And no one said “vagina” or “penis” either. Kenny emerged as a likable central character. Jimmy seemed less like a two-dimensional lummox. Shannon became intelligent as well as scheming. And Mom and Dad became real.

I was so impressed that I was actually eager to watch the second episode -- something which rarely happens. I liked this one too. Among other things, Jimmy Kimmel magically appears in the O’Neals’ kitchen while they’re having breakfast -- a clever touch.

What’s the lesson here? That the presence of a narrator and dialogue about female genitalia are not always enough to condemn a new TV show. Keep it real, “O’Neals.”

“The Real O’Neals” premieres Wednesday (March 2) at 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. Eastern on ABC.