The Runway – Your 2016 Pilot Survival Guide: NBC Comedies

The “former married couple has to co-parent kids” sitcom set-up is about as popular these days as “loving couple has to co-parent kids” was pre-1990ish. In almost every incarnation, it’s generally an A-list actor with some big-time movie credits and an actress who has a bunch of TV credits. Marlon is no different.

Marlon will play Marlon Wade. He’s the cool dad who eats Hot Pockets and says “t’sup.” Angie is his beleaguered ex-wife who has to put up with his shenanigans. The cold open has them talking to their daughter’s teacher… or should I say laying some heavy, thinly-veiled exposition on her. Marlon’s YouTube channel then introduces us to daughter Maya (13), son Shane (10), and Marlon’s roommate Stevie (40’s).

Plot-wise, we got virtually nothing. Marlon asks his daughter if anything’s up at school, and then gives her the advice to act tougher around white girls. We get plenty of Marlon YouTube interstitials. Then our payoff tag scene is Marlon again being late to the teacher conference and his daughter being n trouble for taking Marlon’s advice.

What can I say? Marlon is a star. It’s very hard for networks to say “no” to stars. Plus, Marlon is also the type of guy that can play to the back of a studio audience. But the plotting and dialogue and characterization were meh. Didn’t we already see this with Jay Mohr on Gary Unmarried? This one entirely rests on Marlon Wayan’s shoulders — and I’m not one to bet against that.