Having grown up watching Tim Allen in “Home Improvement,” I went into ABC’s “Shifting Gears” with some skepticism. It’s not so much that I don’t like the guy as I had a hard time imagining his talents translating to 2025. But “Shifting Gears” won me over easily. Was I tearing up already in the first episode? Did I laugh out loud? It feels a bit silly to admit, but I did.
Allen’s Matt is a beleaguered widower, lonely after his wife’s recent passing. He runs an auto shop that fixes up old cars (the man can never be too far from a tool chest), which he keeps pristinely clean and organized, just like his home.
Then his daughter, Riley (Kat Dennings), comes back in town with her two kids (Maxwell Simkins as anxious high-schooler Carter and Barrett Margolis as the precocious younger sister Georgia) in tow. They need a place to stay while Riley gets a divorce. She got pregnant as a teen and ran away with her musician boyfriend. Middle-aged now, she’s realized that picking a life path to piss off her father has left her adrift and unfulfilled.
Reunited without the mother as the bridge, Matt and Riley have a difficult time of it. They’re two big personalities who a supporting character aptly refers to as tornadoes about to form a hurricane.
It’s a ripe set-up, and Dennings and Allen deliver, landing their jokes and some heartwarming moments. Now, this is a classic sitcom, performed in front of a live studio audience and beaming to our screens with its laugh track. Shows like these eschew realism, giving us more of a theater vibe. The characters pause to let the audience’s reaction subside, and everyone’s always cheating out to make sure the audience can see them.
Realism this is not. But “Shifting Gears” still captures something true about family, love, and forgiveness–while being funny, too. Allen mostly uses words to land his jokes, only resorting to his signature grunts/noises once in the two episodes given to critics to screen. This light touch works, letting him leverage his comedic chops without descending into pure schtick.
And Dennings knows how to work an audience too. Her high-pitched voice could use some relaxing but she delivers as a grown woman taking hard knocks for her high-school choices. As such, Riley and Matt engage in classic intergenerational conflict, about whether grandson Carter should get “accommodations” for his anxiety (and even just what accommodations are), not to mention screentime, driving, and more.
They find a way to make it work, supported by a cast of colorful characters. Seann William Scott as Gabriel is the handsome hometown boy who appears to exist as a foil for Riley’s deadbeat musician husband (my money is on Gabriel becoming Riley’s eventual love interest). Brenda Song, as the high school’s neurotic vice principal, is delightfully unhinged. And Daryl Mitchell, as one of the other mechanics in Matt’s shop, drops wisdom and jokes like sitcoms of ages past.
Mostly, though, “Shifting Gears” works because Allen and Dennings are believable as an estranged father-daughter pairtrying to work it out. There’s humor there, but there’s also real emotion. Decades of hurt and misunderstanding are underlaid with begrudging love. These are two people who genuinely want the best for each other but are so different that they’ve been unable to support each other in ways that actually work.
As grown-ups now, they have another chance. And while they may spar over Nancy Pelosi, their personal quirks, and ambitions, they’re also finding ways to build a new relationship. And that emotional core makes the whole thing work, powered by the laughs along the way.
Two episodes screened for review. Premieres on ABC tonight, January 8th.
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