Television

Standard Of Review: 7 Ideas To Improve The Grinder

The Grinder is a promising comedy but experiencing a few growing pains, according to culture columnist Harry Graff.

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On October 27, FOX ordered a full season of its freshman legal comedy The Grinder, meaning that the show will air twenty-two episodes during the 2015-2016 television season. That is good news, because, as explained in my initial review of the show on October 15, The Grinder is a promising comedy, albeit with a few growing pains (this would have been a much better pun if Fred Savage was on that show instead of The Wonder Years).

With several more episodes to go this season, I would like to offer some suggestions on how to improve the show. And if you tell me that there is no way that I could possibly improve The Grinder, I would paraphrase Dean and respond, “But what if I could?” (This column will contain spoilers through this week’s episode, and will focus in particular on the last three episodes.)

1. Focus on the Work, Ditch the Family. As I wrote in my initial review, The Grinder needs to choose whether it wants to be a workplace comedy or a family comedy; with a half-hour runtime, it can’t legitimately be both. While there are occasionally some funny moments involving Stewart’s family (in particular, Connor Kalopsis has had some great line readings), the show frequently falls back on typical, clichéd, family comedy plots. For example, a major storyline of last week’s episode concerned Stewart and Debbie deciding whether to let their children go on dates with classmates. Fred Savage does “exasperated parent” well, but these plotlines seem like they would be more at home in The Wonder Years era, not in 2015. I understand that the show is not going to ditch full-time cast members, so I would recommend giving them all part-time jobs at Stewart’s law firm and include them in the workplace storylines. We can pretend that child labor laws do not exist in Boise.

2. More Natalie Morales. My favorite actor so far on The Grinder is Natalie Morales, who is an excellent foil to Dean. Morales’s sarcastic demeanor and wry delivery have led to a number of big laughs. For example, in the October 20 episode, after Dean’s “grinding” helps Claire win a case, Dean throws all the papers off Claire’s desk in a feeble attempt to have sex with her in her office. Claire is completely unfazed by this and does not even flinch, making Dean seem more pathetic than lothario. This is a great comedic scene, and I hope that the show continues to make great use of Morales (though I am concerned because she has barely appeared in the last two episodes).

The show is also attempting to turn Claire into a “real” lawyer. As I have written repeatedly, I appreciate when legal shows, movies, and books portray the daily grind (no pun intended) of legal work, such as digging for case law or reviewing documents. For example, in the October 20 episode, Claire requests that Dean review a set of documents in order to help the firm win a case. After Dean complains that on the show within the show on The Grinder, this sort of grunt work was usually skipped over in a montage, Claire responds that “this boring stuff that you want to skip over – that’s my whole life.”

3. Find Something to Do With William Devane. When I found out that William Devane was cast on The Grinder as Stewart and Dean’s father Dean Sr., I figured that Devane would be playing a more comedic version of his character James Heller on 24, a competent and stern father figure. Instead, Dean Sr.’s main characteristic on The Grinder is that he occasionally appears in scenes. Given that he has not yet been established as an actual character with actual traits, there is still time to improve him. In recent episodes, the show has alluded to the fact that Dean Sr. has taken a lot of time off from work. The show should establish that in the firm’s heyday, he was a maniacal taskmaster who became estranged from his sons due to the fact that he was never home. However, since suffering a health scare, Dean Sr. has attempted to minimize all stress, leading to the non-character that Dean Sr. has been in these first few episodes. Slowly but surely, though, Dean Sr. tries to ramp up his work activity again, putting him in direct conflict with Stewart and Dean.

4. Utilize Boise as a Location. One of the many, many unique aspects of great dramas such as Mr. Robot, Breaking Bad, or Better Call Saul is that they are actually filmed on location, as opposed to some stand-in city such as Toronto, Vancouver, or Los Angeles. These shows are thus able to make great use of their cities, resulting in beautiful cinematography. The Grinder is set in Boise, Idaho, which is an unusual setting for a television show. I know almost nothing about Boise, but even I can tell that the show is obviously filmed in Los Angeles. I understand that asking big actors like Rob Lowe to spend half the year in Boise is probably a non-starter. Therefore, I would recommend filming exterior shots for one to two weeks a year in Boise, which would give The Grinder a uniqueness that is impossible to obtain by shooting on a Hollywood lot.

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5. More Meta. Since my initial review, The Grinder has continued to utilize a handful of meta jokes, such as when Stewart’s colleague Todd – seeing how the firm is bending over backwards to cater to Claire – laments that “new characters always cause a re-shuffle” and cause “chubby” characters (like himself) to be written off the show. These meta jokes are almost always funny, and elevate The Grinder over the jumble of network comedies that premiere every fall.

6. Use “Beg the Question” Correctly. In this week’s episode, Dean said the words “beg the question” to mean “to raise the question” or “to bring up the question.” That is incorrect; “begging the question” is a circular logical fallacy in which the speaker assumes his or her conclusion as support for that conclusion (for example, “broccoli is healthy because it is good for you”). In order to attract and retain attorney viewers, The Grinder needs to avoid this common pitfall.

7. Don’t Introduce Characters with the Same Name as Characters on Fargo. In the October 20 episode, Stewart and Debbie befriend their affluent neighbors the Gerharts (Nat Faxon and Alexie Gilmore), but they soon suspect that they are being used so that the Gerharts can meet Dean. I have no issue with this storyline, except for the fact that The Grinder airs on Tuesdays, one night after the fantastic second season of Fargo, in which the Gerhardts (admittedly spelled slightly differently) are a prominent North Dakota family crime syndicate. It is difficult to hear the Sandersons repeatedly reference “the Gerharts” without being distracted by the thought of Jean Smart, Jeffrey Donovan, and the rest of Fargo’s eccentric and deadly clan. However, if The Grinder wants to have a crossover episode in which Stewart and Dean are threatened by Mike Milligan and the Kitchen Brothers, I would be all in.

Earlier: Standard Of Review: Fox’s ‘The Grinder’ Mocks Legal Procedurals, But Is Still A Work In Progress

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Harry Graff is a litigation associate at a firm, but he spends days wishing that he was writing about film, television, literature, and pop culture instead of writing briefs. If there is a law-related movie, television show, book, or any other form of media that you would like Harry Graff to discuss, he can be reached at harrygraff19@gmail.com. Be sure to follow Harry Graff on Twitter at @harrygraff19.

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