• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, October 18, 2024

We started the week with “Happy’s Place” on NBC and we end it with “Poppa’s House” on CBS.

Clearly, network TV is claiming its sense of place this fall. Of the two locations, “Poppa’s House” is a happier place to visit than “Happy’s Place,” if only because two Wayanses are funnier than one Reba McEntire.

In “Poppa’s Place,” Damon Wayans, 64, is Poppa and his real-life son, Damon Jr., 41, is his sitcom son (both pictured above). 

Poppa’s a cantankerous radio personality in New York. But I unless I missed it, Junior’s livelihood was not mentioned in the premiere episode the TV Blog previewed on Thursday.

Poppa is divorced from Junior’s mother, so the show had no need to cast a wife for him. 

Conveniently for the sake of the show, Junior and his wife live right next door to Poppa’s house, which means no one has to travel far to interact. 

It is a relatively common sitcom ploy -- from “Seinfeld’s” Kramer to Ray Barone’s parents who lived across the street in “Everybody Loves Raymond.”

The best feature of “Poppa’s House” is Damon Sr., who is one of those rare comedic actors whose voice alone is instantly hilarious whether the words coming out of it are funny or not.

Listening to Damon Wayans Sr. is certainly preferable to watching Reba McEntire’s ceaseless mugging and shrieking in “Happy’s Place.” 

The problem is, “Poppa’s House” doesn’t exactly runneth over with comedic things for Damon Sr. to say.

Instead, the show -- at least in Episode One -- relies on tired sitcom clichés, in this case a mild tiff between Junior and his wife after he forgets to buy ground beef for the lasagna.

This forms the basis for the whole episode, as the couple goes back and forth over Junior’s negligence and gray-bearded Poppa tries to make peace.

Spoiler alert: By the end of the episode, the happy couple are hugging and kissing once again, and Poppa is seen back behind his radio microphone taking on callers cantankerously.

CBS is pairing Cedric the Entertainer’s “The Neighborhood,” which starts its seventh season next week, with “Poppa’s House” Monday nights at 8 and 8:30 p.m. respectively. 

Despite all of the sitcom touches in the “Poppa’s House” premiere that make a TV blogger roll his eyes, look at his watch and undertake other tasks while the show is on, there was something about this show that gave me hope that subsequent episodes will improve.

Many premieres come with a case of first-episode-itis where the pieces don’t quite go together. “Poppa’s House” just might find a cure.

“Poppa’s House” premieres Monday, October 21, at 8:30 p.m. Eastern on CBS.