User Reviews

It has only been one episode, so this may be unfair, but it looks very unfunny with lame, hackneyed attempts at jokes. Abigail Spencer showed she can act on "Suits". I am not sure she can be funny.

Jon Cryer is still playing Alan from "Two and a Half Men". That shtick is old.

I may tune in again, just because there already no new episodes of any other network shows, but episode one was terribly disappointing.

There really isn't much more to say. Read the other reviews that are all saying the same thing. The jokes just are unoriginal and I don't think I laughed once in the whole half hour of the show.

After the first few episodes, I thought no, what were they thinking, this is ridiculous and will never work. But I have loved Jon Cryer since Pretty in Pink, and I fell n love with Donald Faison in Clueless. So I hung in there, and I'm so glad that I did. It is a very engaging story about exes who remain good friends. It's a light hearted comedy about family life. It's fun for the entire family. I think it's a well written script, and a good cast whose comedic timing is flawless. Does it get a little cheesy sometimes. Yes. Does it go overboard sometimes. Yes. But that's what makes it fun to watch. Cryer isn't afraid to step outside the box and be a little cheesy. I think it makes for good entertainment.

Emmy award winner Jon Cryer is back in a sitcom role as a divorcing father, Jim Kearney, of two in Boston, Massachusetts. Lenny Clarke plays his character's father on a recurring role. Donald Faison plays, Trey, who also owns the Boston Celtics, the popular professional basketball team. Trey becomes his ex-wife's fiance. The kids get along with the new arrangement. The parents are co-parenting in the contemporary age. Boston is a great city to set a sitcom too. The cast is good but could be better. I have seen almost all of the first eight episodes. I would prefer to see more slapstick humor or even physical humor in the show. We need to see more sitcoms. The art of comedy is a lot harder than drama anyway. Jon Cryer and the cast are doing their best with what they have.

I had high hopes for this show. I liked all of the principal actors in other shows, and the premise seemed original. But, as with he new "Frasier", the laugh track is tired and trite.

Someone, somewhere thinks that if they throw in a bunch of laughs, giggles and gasps, it will make their bad show worth watching. I have a tip: if it's not funny in the first place, a laugh track won't change anyone's perception of the show.

And now, to make up the required character count, I will create the IMDB "character track" for your amusement. Try not to laugh! Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.

First my wife and I like sitcoms. We have watched most of the offerings from the past 40 years. We have favorites, seen some great ones and have watched some really piss poor one. This one is the latter.

Unfunny, forced acting, boring story. I am surprised this even got green lit by a studio head. I would have halted this trash at the script stage.

Borrowing tropes from sitcoms gone by (please retire the talking to the camera) any originality dies in a few minutes of watching. John Cryer is funny with other funny people. If it was just him on 2 and 1/2 Men, the show would have bombed. The other actors in this mess don't seem to know why they took the gig.

Just a mess.

Extended Family had a rough start. I won't deny it. But its first season has improved with each episode. Yes - there are come cliches to the story. But I think the creatives took the criticisms of the early episodes and have worked to make it better.

This is what streaming CAN'T do. Let shows grow and improve week by week. With streaming you need a good first season from beginning to end because of it dropping at once. I know some streaming shows do week to week release but they film the season all at once. While that can work for some shows particularly at HBO, it doesn't work for mainstream streaming.

Linear TV is important.

While I have liked Jon Cryer, Donald Faison & Abigail Spencer in other roles this show is dismally unfunny, unoriginal and unwatchable.

Jon Cryer was good in Two and a Half Men, Superman IV, Hot Shots & even longer ago, Pretty In Pink, but I can't say I've seen him in anything else memorable or good.

Donald Faison was good in Waiting to Exhale, Clueless, The Exes and the short-lived Emergence but is probably best known for his role as Turk in the long running Scrubs series. He's had other roles but is likely best recognized from his more recent T-Mobile commercials with former Scrubs co-star Zach Braff.

Abigail Spencer was good in Rectify and the too short-lived Timeless series. She was also in Oz the Great and Powerful alongside Zach Braff though not a memorable role.

I don't know who plays Jon Cryer's father but he was memorable only for the fact that his character annoyed us for some reason.

None of these actors were good or believable in this show. At all. The laugh track was awful and only served to show the deficiency of humor. It felt a little like a rehashed version of The Exes.

This show was so bad that i simply couldn't see a point where it might do something original or otherwise redeem itself and we turned it off less than halfway through the pilot.

It's a funny take on an awkward situation that many go through with coparenting. It's your standard sitcom corny and it's enjoyable. It is crazy to see how low the other scores are. I watched all available episodes in one sitting. The dynamic between the exes and the new spouse is funny. The children are great and I definitely hope others catch on so this show gets some life. The first episode takes on the death of the family pet and how to handle it. Give it a chance, we need more family fun sitcoms that are light and realistic. The sharing one home is fresh and unlike anything I have seen yet.

I was pretty disappointed to see how many poor reviews the show has received. Anyone who has been through divorce knows that it's a painful and difficult time. This show takes that strange scenario, and makes it into something that you can smile and laugh about, even the weird idiosyncrasies of the people involved in it. In the end, it's obvious that everybody in the show cares for each other and they try to make the situation funny. My family has very much enjoyed watching the show and I hope to see more of it. With only 22 minutes or so to get a story across, they have to be basic and obvious, but I've found the writing to be witty and enjoyable.

There were so many red flags right out of the gate that this was not going to be anything more than a mediocre sitcom. Unfortunately it did not even live up to that minimal expectation.

First was the completely unfunny trailer. When they can't even make you smile, let alone laugh, in the trailer, you know worse is yet to come. Second, once you do choose to give this a try (against your better judgement) you are smacked in the face with a loud, obnoxious laugh track. And while annoying as heck, it also always means there is nothing actually funny happening on screen so they need to provide the illusion of humor via canned laughter. Third is the fact that two of the three main actors are trying to be funny but simply can't pull it off with the dismal writing and plot they have to deal with while the third (yes, it's Faison, he is awesome!) is funny but like the others, has been severely hampered by the writers and whoever came up with this plot line.

I cannot endure more than the few shows I sat through to write a fair review, so I'm done. But still I say give it a try because we all have different tastes in sitcoms. I have liked some in the past that others did not, so watch and make your own call.

I actually found this very entertaining and I don't understand the bad reviews. The three main leads are really good and funny actors and the two kids are pretty good too and not stiff or cringy. It is fast paced and not boring. I think the bad reviews are all from people who don't like multi-cam laugh track sitcoms. If you don't like that type of show, then of course you won't like this. It you liked Jon Cryer in 2 1/2 men than I think you will like this. If you liked Donald Faison in Scrubs, give it a chance. There aren't enough sitcoms on air anymore and it is because of this rush to judgement. Give it a chance!!!!

So much didn't work that you could make this a drinking game while you watch it,take a drink during the laugh track or tired jokes & clichés.

It was under 30 minutes & this episode just dragged on,on & on!

The casting overall didn't work,the acting felt overdone & more like they were doing a play versus television.

Feel JC still feels he is Two & a half men funny,perhaps at one time but here it just was cringe-worthy.. He is playing another similar(Alan)character why not a man in a stable marriage,he's a widow or single & no kids but yet-Here we are!

This won't last beyond a season unless things improve,with many adjustments!

The unfortunate part got excited seeing a new series with JC,but like anything things can change where a person isn't acting material anymore.

Check it out yourself & decide,but don't expect a masterpiece.

As a passionate advocate for multi-camera sitcoms, it's somewhat disappointing that the genre is churning out lazy efforts with seasoned professionals. Jon Cryer and Donald Faison both have terrific comedy chops (they have like 700 episodes of TV classics between them under their belt) but are wasted in this "been-there-done-that" tale of divorce. Cryer to his credit is trying hard (if a little too hard), Faison looks bored and whilst Abigail Spencer sparkles and delivers comedy well, she's a bit miscast. It's noticeable and especially tacky in 2024 of the age difference between her and her male co-stars. Spencer is 42, Faison 49 and Cryer is 58 so the distance between Cryer and Spencer just feels off. They were married 17 years back so that would have made him 41 and her 25. Either Cryer or Spencer needed to go somewhere in the mix - it's just odd and it makes believing in the premise harder. The kids are generic cookie-cutter copies of a 2000's sitcom too but are just background fodder to really Cryer, Faison and Spencer. Nobody expects a show like this to be at a high caliber but they could put a little more effort.

From the corny deliveries to the spoon-fed laugh track, this show is clearly not a winner. But hey, they cant all be winners. That's what pilot season is for. But this one most likely won't make it past its first season. Great actors for sure, but this comedy format doesn't play to their strengths very well.

Jon Cryer needs to leave silly sitcoms for a while so audiences don't immediately see Alan Harper of "Two and a Half Men". He played that role for so long, that the only way for audiences to disassociate from that character is if he came out 100% a different character. But another wimpy dad role? C'mon. They had to know that was a bad call.

I've always been an Abigail Spencer fan, and she has surprisingly good timing for sitcom-style comedy.

Donald Faison was perfect for Scrubs, so it's hard to accept him at anything less than that.

Lenny Clarke is too much. And not in a good way. Loud, frying-pan-over-the-head delivery on his jokes. It's sort of his style, but it doesn't fit here.

I watched about 3 scenes (20 minutes) of Extended Family and they were all totally unoriginal and no one could have made them funny, least of all Jon Cryer. As usual, Cryer acted funny versus being funny, though the material wouldn't have done anyone a favor.

It's like the writers had a contest on who could find the most cliches and tired story lines. Nor do they get all their Celtic facts correct. They forgot an entire country or two that is also Celtic besides the Irish. So, they also missed another group of people to expand their joke and offend. (Not saying that in anger, but out of jealousy!)

I can't watch any more of this. Anything that starts out this bad cannot improve to the point to keep my attention. Nor be worth my time.

Give it a go! You might find something in it I missed.

A cringe worthy show in all aspects. Not a single actor seems comfortable in their part. No believable performances. Nothing fits. NOthing lands. The annoying laugh track reminds you that this is a comedy. The dialogue does not. The only decent performance was by the poor fish Google that actually died twice. John Cryer performance comes across as an attempt to play John Cryer rather that the character in this show. I watched 2 1/2 episodes just because, umm you figure it out.

How does something this bad get by professionals in the entertainment industry? Or am I out of touch with comedy or modern life?

Why the networks seem to think they need to tell us when to laugh is beyond me. WE KNOW WHEN TO LAUGH. We laugh when something is funny. This is not a funny show. I really like Donald Faison. I think Abigail Spencer is beautiful. Jon Cryer is really annoying. He was annoying in Two and a Half Men - but he played welled against Charlie Sheen. Well ... Charlie isn't here to raise him up. This show might have worked better ... without the laugh track. Let us decide what is funny. BUT I think I've decided it isn't funny at all. It's just plain stupid. It insults my intelligence. The laugh track insults my intelligence. The writers insult my intelligence. ENOUGH ...

Two stars ONLY for Donald Faison and Abigail Spencet ...

This show forgot to advertise. Always a red flag to me, I hate under-advertising almost as much as over-hype. So I went in without any high hopes. Just suddenly saw it in the guide after the new Night Court, so I gave it a shot, I'm watching the lead-in anyway. Starring Jon Cryer from Two And A Half Men fame and Donald Faison from Scrubs fame, both well liked funny entertaining shows (even if Men got a little formulaic and laugh-track heavy after Charlie Sheen's exit). COULD be promising, MAY be lazy, relying on the star power of these two and their credentials.

So I came in wary. But I've been pleasantly surprised. Cryer and Faison aren't just clones of their previous characters - a pathetic Hollywood trend to try to copy what works, instead of trying anything new and innovative and interesting like Firefly - they're new likeable characters. Cryer's Alan got to be very weaselly and a pure leech by the end of Men, nice to see him portraying a more confident guy who has the means not to be struggling financially all the time this time. Faison being the new husband of the ex-wife means they aren't trying to pair him with Cryer to mimic the Super Close Buddies dynamic he had in Scrubs.

And I've found the episodes genuinely entertaining. Fun, and largely skipping the usual warring exes/hated new beau dynamic that is rather tired by now. This show deserves WAY higher than the 4.4 or so it's averaging at the moment (so I inflated my score slightly, though I don't know any reasons I'd want to lower it anyway). The mostly comfortable separation Cryer and the ex-wife and her beau have is rather pleasant and a nice change of pace (such as from the similar trio from Friends, Ross with his ex-wife Carol and her girlfriend Susan, where Ross and Susan always openly showed hatred towards each other, leaving Carol in the middle. We've seen THAT dynamic plenty, THIS is refreshing).

Did anyone at the network actually watch this garbage before deciding to pay to air episodes? How about the sponsors? I'm guessing the answer is no, because this is embarrassing, talentless and a waste of time.

Do we really need Jon Cryer to reprise his whiny, disgusting, sniveling little character from Two and a Half Men, walking around shirtless, looking like raw chicken, passing gas and looking for something to hump? It might be worth watching if there was an alpha male, Charlie Sheen character to smack him around...or a Berta character to make fun of him.

Please put this show out of its misery!

I think this has the potential to be a Growing Pains or Who's the Boss for today's generation. Jon Cryer's character is every divorced dad I know. Funny. Sarcastic. Loveable AH. The mom typical Gen X/Xennial. Loving, caring, kind but also finding herself again in her new normal. Soon-to-be stepdad with more money, fame, etc. To get dad to be more of a loveable AH. The chemistry is great between them all. Kids are great too! Typical older sister, younger brother. Does it seem a bit like Two and Half Men? Yes. Does it seem a bit like Modern Family? Yes. But, the show is honest of America today. I can watch this with my kids like my parents did with me. Hopefully more families catch on and we can bring family tv night back!

Just because I liked Jon's character in "Two and a Half Men," I was excited to watch this show and had been waiting for it. Although I didn't like the trailer, I still thought maybe Jon Cryer would make it watchable, but he couldn't.

Positives: Jon Cryer is trying a lot to be funny, and sometimes it works. Even the Julia character is good, and the starting dialogues, along with the reverse wedding thing, were fine.

Negatives: I didn't like Trey's character, as he is one of the leads, so they should have created a better character and done casting accordingly. Also, I don't understand why they chose both male lead characters to be bald. Not that I have a problem with bald people, but I'm confused about this type of casting choice.

In the first episode, Jon's character, Jim, said many times that "I am joking," and the laughter track was going on nonstop, yet nothing was funny. They made the entire first episode on the goldfish. Also, this talking to the audience and telling us how fun and awesome divorce is was stupid; they should have just let us watch the show rather than providing commentary and character interviews.

When I came to know about the story of this show, it felt somewhat similar to "Splitting Up Together," and I must say that show is way better than this one. If you haven't watched that show, try it; you will love Season 1, especially. Even if this show was released in the '90s, I don't think it would have worked. I am skipping it.

I'm pretty sure this show was cancelled halfway thru the pilot. It's a complete disaster. I've learned shows use a laugh track in order to prompt the tv audience to laugh. They also use it because of weak writing, insecure writers and very weak jokes. I found zero chemistry or comedic timing between any of the characters. Admittedly, I'm not a fan of Jon Cryer doing Tv however comma I do think he's done a good job in 80s movies.

I like Donald Faison. He's had some great roles in both Tv and movies so im curious what attracted him to this. I'm almost willing to bet he lost a bet and this was his commitment for losing the bet.

QA/QC is no longer an obstacle to get movies and shows on the air due to the over abundance of streaming sources.

The show's tagline is "Marriages end. Facilities don't."

They should. Really, this "family" should never has started, but it SHOULD END.

The comedy is questionable, at best, It is based on punchlines we already know, physical bits that have been overdone, and rehashes of VERY OLD plot notions. (I can't say "ideas" because these are barely notions and sucky ones at that.

Did the network order this before seeing the pilot? That is the only way I can understand how it got onto the air. Perhaps they saw the list of a winning cast and never took into account that they could manage to come together SO BADLY.

Bad acting, bad directing, bad comedy bad everything.

Okay, well maybe it wasn't THAT bad, but Lord, it wasn't good.

In a world where no one wants to make sitcoms anymore because they require both talent and money, you'd think just about anything would be welcomed with open arms. That's until you watch a couple episodes of Extended Family. No spoilers but the setup is dumb, the writing is sophomoric at best, and the jokes are about as funny as getting kicked in the groin for 20 minutes. I imagine the writing room being a handful of twenty-somethings who never enjoyed experiencing the golden age of the TV sitcom pitching ideas that they think are original and even a bit progressive yet this is the output - a show that's not just bad but offensively and painfully bad. If you have the strength to sit through more than one episode of this dreck you're far stronger than I am.

Despite what the other reviews have said, I love love love Extended Family!! I freaking loved Abigail Spencer as Lucy on Timeless, and she does an amazing job once again as Julia on Extended Family!! Jon Cryer as Jim does an amazing job, as do the actors that play the kids! Jon and Abigail, as well as Donald Faison as Trey have some really great on screen interactions, the whole plot is a really genius idea and something that I've never seen before in a sitcom. As soon as I saw that Abigail was gonna be in this show, I just knew I had to watch because she's one of my favorites. I really hope this show gets a season 2, I know the remaining episodes will be just as funny and great as the pilot!