You don’t got it, dude.
If you loved Full House, then you might be surprised when you crack open the first episode of Netflix’s sequel series Fuller House. The pilot’s reliance on nostalgia is actually where the new show stumbles, whereas the series begins to work when Fuller House looks forward instead of back — though structurally the show remains the same as its predecessor.
Fuller House picks up about 20 years after the end of Full House, with Danny Tanner (Bob Saget) ready to move out of his family home that he had been sharing with his newly widowed daughter D.J. (Candice Cameron Bure). Ultimately he decides to leave the house to D.J. to give her a place to raise her three sons: Jackson (Michael Campion), Max (Elias Harger) and baby Tommy (Dashiell and Fox Messitt).
We want to hear it.
Instead of Danny staying with her in place of continuing his initial plan to move, D.J.’s younger sister Stephanie (Jodie Sweetin) decides to give up her successful deejaying career to help support her sister, and her best friend Kimmy Gibbler (Andrea Barber) agrees to move in with her daughter Ramona (Soni Nicole Bringas). This, obviously, parallels the beginning of Full house when Joey (Dave Coulier) and Joey (John Stamos) move in with newly widowed father-of-three Danny.
It’s a solid set-up on paper, but in execution the pilot relies so heavily on nostalgia that it’s hard to get attached. Between breaking the fourth wall for an unneeded Olsen twins dig (this happened multiple times throughout the season) to undercutting any emotional resonance of the story to amplify the fun of the reunion episode, it’s not hard to imagine many people finishing that episode and not going any further.
That’s a shame, because as Fuller House continues through Season 1, it does get better. The series can’t resist throwing in one of the Full House adults into most of the episodes — Joey comes to babysit, Danny stops by for a visit and to be overprotective of D.J., Jesse and Becky (Lori Loughlin) celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary — but it only truly clicks when the focus is on D.J., Stephanie and Kimmy as the new Danny, Jesse and Joey (respectively).
Fuller House First Look Images
Fuller House First Look Images
Fuller House First Look Images
Fuller House First Look Images
These are the most Full House moments of all, in a good way. If you weren’t a fan of the original, this isn’t going to be the version of the story that wins you over, but if you did like the Jeff Franklin family comedy, the inverted family dynamics work pretty well. With Ramona joining the family against her will and Jackson in his troublesome pre-teen days, they cause plenty of trouble and a relatively decent amount of the humor lands. The character I was most surprised to find grew on me is Harger as Max, who is a 7-year-old mini-adult and deserved all the chuckles I gave him.
As for the three leads, this is very much D.J.’s story. Stephanie gets sidelined the most; her struggles with giving up her career and trying to fall in love barely pop over her being a supportive sister, cool aunt and bad baby sitter. Kimmy’s arc works because Barber is great in the role, and she really sells the emotional journey of Kimmy struggling with her feelings for her ex. They both revolve around and support D.J., whose workplace we get to visit and whose love life becomes central to her story.
Again, it’s when these characters and their kids are together that Fuller House is elevated above mediocrity. Sadly, it happens too infrequently. The repeated cameo appearances, both from previous cast members and a bizarre array of pop culture figures, drag the show down pretty much every time they come on screen. Macy Gray’s appearance in episode 3 is so phoned in it’s painful, the same episode’s cameos of Maksim and Val Chmerkovskiy is hard to watch and too meta (if you didn’t know, Bure was on a season of Dancing with the Stars) , and the one-episode arc of San Francisco Giants right fielder Hunter Pence never feels necessary or more than an audience wink.
We want to hear it.
Some jokes did work for me: Stephanie stealing the name “D.J. Tanner” professionally, Ramona’s first steps in her high heels, the repeated gag of Max being an exasperated parent to the new dog Comet Jr. Jr. and pretty much everything with Kimmy Gibler. What didn’t: lines like “what if the Uber sees my boobers,” the repeated and terrible cameos, the over-reliance on Full House’s catchphrases (more like “no, Mylanta”), Stephanie’s British accent in the pilot, that Bollywood dance sequence (WHYYYY?) and the continued jabs at the Olsen twins’ absence that just made the actors and writers look bitter.
Humor aside, there were many moments when the show’s messaging didn’t land. As a fan of Full House growing up, there were episodes of that show that stuck with me for years; in particular, the episode where D.J. tried to starve herself so she would look better in a bathing suit. It was those personal moments where the show could be more than just a funny family sitcom, and I am proof that they do make an impact on impressionable young viewers.
Those moments don’t exist in Fuller House, especially as the show focuses so much more on the adult versions of Full House’s kids and less on the new show’s younger stars. There’s a missed opportunity to explore what happens when parents separate and tell kids that’s OK, and instead offers the fairy tale alternative instead.
We want to hear it.
The show did a good job when it finally dealt with D.J.’s grief over the passing of her husband and the impact it had on her sons, but too often resonance was lost when it shifted the focus to the comedy of her needing to choose between her two potential love interests. Frustratingly, Fuller House should have come to the conclusion it should focus on D.J. as a person instead of someone trapped in a Bachelor-style love triangle. (Here’s a simple explanation for why there was such a heavy Bachelor focus, by the way.)
The huge problem with Fuller House is this new show won’t inspire the same sort of nostalgia that Full House did. This isn’t the type of show that clicks with viewers nowadays, and none of the cast or storylines is so standout that it would be notable for anything other than the fact it’s continuing a story that people cared about two decades ago. The over-reliance on flashback scenes to Full House just underline how much this new show doesn’t stand on its own, when by the end of Season 1 it should feel like it does.
Similarly problematic is the audience the show is trying to target. Fuller House is as family-friendly as its predecessor (with similar smacks of raunchiness throughout, for better or worse), but the focus of the show is on the adults, which might not grab the younger audience the show should be aiming for. Interestingly, the lesson Fuller House seems to be going for is that it’s OK for adults to grow up even after they’re no longer kids. It doesn’t always work, but it is the most ambitious thing Fuller House has going for it.
