NBC has been trying to replicate "This is Us" for a couple of seasons, and has found bottling that formula difficult to...
- The stars of "Will & Grace" talk about the last episode ever
- Selena Gomez to cause social media fever when re-appearing on big screen
NBC has been trying to replicate "This is Us" for a couple of seasons, and has found bottling that formula difficult to master. It comes a little closer than most with "Council of Dads," an emotional concept that exhausts so much ground in the premiere it's difficult to foresee where it goes thereafter.
Using the "This is Us" season finale to introduce the show (which will return regularly in April), NBC is again banking on a lost parent as the centerpiece of this series. Only here, the father (Tom Everett Scott) comes face to face with mortality via his diagnosis with an aggressive form of cancer, not a fire, which prompts him to begin contemplating how to fill the void he'll leave for his kids.
Loosely based on Bruce Feiler's 2010 book, the show boasts a strong cast, beginning with Sarah Wayne Callies ("The Walking Dead") as Robin, Scott's near-perfect wife, who has to be sold on this whole back-up dads concept.
The concept is pretty astutely designed to tug at the heartstrings, even if it does so in a brazenly manipulative way. It helps initially that there are so many moving parts, but also offers a hazy blueprint as to whether "Council of Dads" can sustain interest after chewing through so much story so quickly.
