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Tyler Labine

First off I have to say that I really enjoy watching Tyler Labine, even though some may say he always plays the same character, I find him funny nonetheless.  He really was the only redeeming thing about both Invasion and Reaper.  Therefore, it should come as no surprise that I really liked the pilot script for Sons of Tucson.  I have my doubts about the ability of it to succeed on Fox considering the way they treat anything which isn’t named American Idol or The Simpsons, but I think that the style of humour, and the cast which they have got for the show are all quite promising.

The pilot introduces us to Ron (Tyler Labine) who works at a sporting goods store and once again has that kind of chatty cool personality.  In walks three brothers, Gary (14, the boss), Brandon (16, kinda dumb but caring), and Robby (8, ADHD pain in the ass), who proceed to enlist Ron to be their fake dad in order to enrol at the local school for the price of $200.

He does his job and returns home only to have his girlfriend dump him, be served with an eviction notice, and get fired the next day for selling a crossbow to a 12 year-old.  Ron’s once again called upon to help the boys out when Robby faces disciplinary problems over a fire he caused at the Back to School Fair.  After all this, Ron takes the boys to their home, and with their reluctant help he cons an old lady out of some civil war figurines.  The pilot ends with them all realising they work well together, so they enter into a deal whereby Ron will provide his services for a set fee and boarding in the tool shed.

If someone had told me the premise of this show, I don’t know if I would have been that interested in watching it, but the inclusion of Tyler Labine and Jake Busey (as Tony, who doesn’t appear in the pilot script) definitely makes this something I’m gonna watch when it airs.  There are some occasional laughs in the pilot, but for the most part it’s fairly standard sitcom stuff.  I can see myself getting real annoyed with Robby pretty quickly if he’s just played as a hyper kid who does as he pleases, but my hope is the character will be developed a bit so as to avoid this.  Ultimately, I think the success of the show will come down to whether or not you like Tyler Labine’s whole schtick, or whether you find him grating.  Reading the script I could visualise him speaking the words very easily and this just led to me enjoying it more.  Plus, as an added bonus it would appear that Labine’s casting in Sons of Tucson means that Reaper is no more, and seen as how I had only recently decided to stop watching that show it means I’ll have somewhere else to see Tyler Labine.

Final Grade:  C+ (although I think the show has more potential than the actual pilot)