“The Goldbergs” (8 p.m. Central Tuesdays on ABC) starts with a montage of 1980s images like “ALF,” “The Karate Kid” and a Rubik’s Cube as the J. Geils Band’s “Centerfold” plays and Patton Oswalt narrates about his love of “E.T., Mr. T and MTV.” But if you’re settling in for a half-hour of humorous, wistful reminders of how life used to be simpler — both because we were kids, and because we didn’t have things like cellphones, iPods or blogs that allow anyone to be an armchair TV critic — you’re in for a disappointment.
“The Goldbergs” is shrill and obvious. Granted, it’s not mean-spirited, and it doesn’t try to trick the audience into laughing with a laugh track (as actual ’80s sitcoms did), but it’s just not very good. It doesn’t even feel like it’s trying to be all that great. The nostalgia could make it stand out, but aside from a few broad inclusions in the narrative — an REO Speedwagon cassette, a floppy disc, the youngest kid’s “Star Wars” shirt and hand-me-down Brooke Shields jeans from his sister — it could be about any family that fights a lot but loves each other. Clearly, it’s set in the ’80s, but “The Goldbergs” doesn’t have a palpable ’80s feel the way that “American Dreams” felt like the ’60s, “Swingtown” felt like the ’70s and “Freaks and Geeks” felt like the early ’80s. Granted, the other current ’80s show, “The Carrie Diaries,” is also mediocre in terms of its sense of time and place, but that’s a deeper show than this one.
By no means does Jeff Garlin embarrass himself, but his brusque-but-bemused act played so much better on “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” mainly because that show is so much more original and funny than the “The Goldbergs.” The plot is what you’d expect if you’ve seen any family sitcom: The mom doesn’t want her kids to grow up, the daughter doesn’t have a car, the middle child doesn’t have a license, the youngest kid (the one represented by Oswalt) videotapes everything, the dad watches TV in his underwear and the grandpa should probably stop driving. Compounding the problem, it doesn’t have a subtle touch; it feels the need to translate Garlin’s comments in subtitles (“You’re not always a total moron” means “I love you”) and have Oswalt narrate almost everything.
Over the final credits of the pilot, one of the producers’ home movies play next to scenes from the show, and we see that they’re pretty much identical. OK, so he brought his home movies to life and accurately captured the way a typical white, suburban, middle-class family of five behaved (and essentially still behaves). But there’s nothing to “The Goldbergs” beyond that, so while it’s worth a smile or two and it’s not embarrassingly bad, it’s hardly worth keeping in your DVR queue. If I had to manually set a VHS or Beta VCR timer ’80s-style, it would have no chance whatsoever of staying in my lineup.
