• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, December 18, 2023

If you find it challenging to summon up any emotion over a dead goldfish, then the pilot of NBC’s new comedy series “Extended Family” is not for you.

In fact, the show might not be for anybody because it is a sitcom that conjures up an imaginary world in which divorces are no big deal and all involved live happily ever after. 

That is, until a goldfish dies. Then, bedlam ensues as Mom and Dad wring their hands over how to break the news to their 13-year-old daughter who loves this fish, or so they mistakenly believe.

Exaggerated facial expressions and hand-wringing are desperately employed to turn these low stakes into high ones.

The lion’s share of this hysteria over a dead goldfish is taken up by Jon Cryer in the role of Dad. 

Now sporting a shaved head (above photo), he takes up the hysteria challenge with a whine that we heard before in “Two and a Half Men.” This is not a whine that improves with age.

Premiering this coming Saturday (December 23) and then returning after New Year’s, “Extended Family” is about this dad and his now-ex-wife (Abigail Spencer, also in the photo), and their insistence that they can have a completely friendly and resentment-free life as a divorced couple.

They imagine this harmonious world as a way of normalizing life for their two children -- the girl, 13, and a younger boy, age unknown.

But as happens in many contemporary sitcoms, the only voice of reason belongs to a child -- in this case, the 13-year-old girl who rightfully lambasts her parents for maintaining their fantasy that their divorce need not have an adverse effect on their children.

One gets the feeling that “Extended Family” hopes to be kinda, sorta like “Modern Family” -- a series so high in quality that it is likely never to be matched.

“Modern Family” was a one-camera comedy with no laugh track, but plenty of laughs. By contrast, “Extended Family” is a three-camera comedy with a laugh track, but few, if any, laughs.

As far as the pilot is concerned, the title of the show is misleading. There really is no “extended” family in the show.

The only outsider is the ex-wife’s new love interest (Donald Faison). He is a man who just so happens to be the owner of the Boston Celtics, itself a fantasy.

In one sequence in the pilot that runs on much too long, the billionaire Celtics guy joins Mom and Dad on a couch, where they all break the fourth wall to face the camera and address the audience.

This is the way this show explains its premise, by explaining it to us as if we are all doofuses. 

If the goal of this show is to find an audience of people who identify with its premise of amicable divorce, then this target audience may prove to be tiny, if not nonexistent.

Although the TV Blog always hopes for the best for those who came together to develop, produce, write and then film these network TV shows, it seems doubtful that “Extended Family” will have an extended stay.

“Extended Family” has a special premiere Saturday, December 23, at 8 p.m. Eastern, and returns in its regular time slot on Tuesday, January 2, at 8:30 p.m. Eastern on NBC.