riverzak Review of The Grinder

The Grinder (2015–2016)

Showed promise but ended up being just another one-trick pony

[3/10 · 20 January 2016]

I was really looking forward to this one. I enjoyed Rob Lowe tremendously in West Wing (too bad the show got away from him) and Fred Savage in Wonder Years. The segments of the fictional "Grinder" TV show were wonderfully over-acted and perfectly lampooned many of the cheesy overly dramatic moments from some of my favourite shows of the past decade or two. In the end, however, the writers just ended up presenting us with the same joke over and over. Add to that the blatant abuse of Fred Savage's family's hospitality to a point that nobody would tolerate and the show just became annoying. Watching people being abused is not comedy. Even the occasional treat of Timothy Olyphant in a comedic role is not enough to keep me watching.