'Council of Dads' Pilot Review: All tears and no smiles make the family drama too melodramatic to connect with
With NBC's primetime hit 'This Is Us' finally bidding adieu, we needed something similar or something equally powerful to fill the void. And then the network gives us 'Council of Dads' wrapped in an emotionally intense premise of a dying father.
Scott Perry (Tom Everett Scott), the patriarch and the story's lead protagonist, devises a way to ensure that his family is taken care of when he is gone.
The pilot opens with Scott fighting cancer and eventually dying, sadly enough. His grieving family of his wife Robin and six kids are looked over by the council of father figures he had set up before his last few days.
The so-named council comprises the trio of Anthony (Clive Standen), Scott's longtime friend and a committed bachelor, Oliver (J. August Richards), Scott's oncologist and one of Robin's oldest friends, and Larry (Michael O'Neill), an old, grumpy father and Scott's former sponsee.
The premise seemed promising at the onset, but eventually, the overtly emotional plot points, almost to the extent of being a tad unrealistic, failed to resonate.
'Council of Dads' is an ultimate tear-jerker family drama, at its best, if you ask.
However, that cannot be a sustainable ingredient to make the audience hold on for long. And this story is going to go a long way. Yes, it is a novel idea, no doubt. More than most family dramas and sentimental stories are driven by women and they lead the story. This show is intended to break that norm and show men in unconventional roles.
At its core, the story is targeted to be transformational, emotionally, psychologically and socially, as well. But within the hour-long pilot, the show explores so many emotions and exhausts the lead characters that it is difficult to say where it will head eventually and how far it can keep us hooked.
The canvas of 'Council of Dads' is quite expansive. With a lot of characters and their respective journeys to explore, it can be confounding to take it all in, especially when the story opens with the death of the pivotal character.
There is barely any room for one to let the event sink in, before there are other major events at play, like a new baby in the family and a wedding (completely unexpected for a pilot), making it too much too soon for an opening episode.
The idea of a lost parent as the base of the story, quite akin to its former primetime hit 'This Is Us' could make 'Council of Dads' take off when it starts airing regularly. However, so far, as we have seen in the pilot, the characters or their stories have failed to connect with us, contrary to what classic family dramas are known to do.
We still have hopes for this series. After all, this is about celebrating family and the hardships that go into it — parenting, dealing with grief and exploring new relationships — especially now in a time when the world seem to be closing in and all we have to hold on is home.
'Council of Dads' will continue to air from Thursday, April 30 at 8/7c on NBC.