By TANIA PHILLIPS
The Goldbergs
Channel 7
8.45pm, Wednesdays
IN a consumer-led society, it is great to want to recycle – but is television really the place for it?
As soon as I turned on the TV and sat to watch The Goldbergs – a sitcom about a young boy growing up in the ’80s, I was struck with an overwhelming sense of de-ja-vu.
A gruff dad, wacky mum, sassy independent older sister, idiot older brother – all narrated by an older version of the youngest son. Mmmm it all seemed oddly familiar. And it was set in a time when most of the parents watching with their kids were growing up. Tugging at the nostalgia strings of our hearts or what?
I must have been slow on the up-take because I wondered why it was so familiar – but I only wondered for a few minutes before it suddenly struck me – Oh My God they’ve remade the Wonder Years – although obviously not intentionally.
If you’re not familiar, Wonder Years was a nostalgic show set in the ’60s/’70s but made in the ’80s taking us back to a gentler age.
But while there was something original and endearing about the Arnolds, the Goldbergs were louder and weirder and not particularly likeable.
So it was kind of The Wonder Years with a dash of Malcolm in the Middle and any other family sitcom of recent times. The only other thing missing from the show was a laugh track – an essential for ’70s and ’80s comedies and probably equally important for this show because it would have been nice to know when to laugh.
In the US this screens in 30 minute blocks, but here Channel Seven has decided to run it in an hour format which is probably not the wisest idea. I think I could have taken it in small doses but a whole hour proved too much for me. Although at the 45th minute mark of this sitcom (which was more sit than com) I finally got a full on belly laugh.
Shame I had already turned over to watch Offspring on Channel 10 by then.
The main problem with The Goldbergs, other than it tried too hard, was that while the Wonder Years was linear, the Goldbergs ’80s is a mish-mash of the era. As one American friend opined on Facebook after I’d watched it, “It bothered me because it mishmashed too many ’80s events. I stopped watching because it hurt my continuity OCD”.
Does this mean the day of the good old-fashioned sitcom is dead? Maybe not – this show has just been renewed in the US so it must be doing something right? Right? Well either that or there aren’t many good comedies around at the moment. I’m hoping for the former, not the latter.
