How 'The Grinder' Found Its Fine Comedy Groove

While so much attention is being paid to funny shows on cable and streaming services, it’s worth pointing out that there are more good sitcoms on network television than there’ve been in a while. I’m thinking particularly of black-ish, The Carmichael Show, and The Grinder, all new or new-ish shows that have found their tone and increased their number of laughs-per-episode as they’ve proceeded.

The Grinder is a unique item right now. It’s got a high-concept that takes a bit of explaining — actor who plays a lawyer on TV (Rob Lowe) quits his show and heads home to help his brother (Fred Savage) at his small law firm, insinuating himself into both the firm and brother’s home life. And it’s a show that combines old-fashioned gags (husbands and wives — they squabble! Every workplace contains eccentric characters!) with an intense self-consciousness about showbiz that usually dooms a show to low ratings or cult status or cancellation, or all of the above (hello/goodbye Community, The Comeback, SportsNight, Action!).

The Grinder had the funniest pilot episode I watched leading into this past fall’s TV season. The chemistry between Lowe and Savage was an unexpected but immediate delight. But the next few episodes fell into repetitions of its initial jokes, and the whole thing felt a little too broad.

Related: See Natalie Morales’s Behind-the-Scenes Photos From ‘The Grinder’ Set

That’s changed, however. The Grinder has found its best identity by making a few tweaks that have streamlined and quickened its growth. The key to its ever-evolving quality is that the writers now have a real handle on the title concept: The best episodes manage to make fun of the corny, repetitive law show-within-the-show while also investing the very concept of a “grinder” as something ennobling. For Dean, being the Grinder, on-screen or off, means constantly striving to be the best you can be, in — as he puts it on one episode — “the everyday struggle for justice.” This helps give The Grinder some genuine heart.

Lowe, who initially seemed to be playing a variation on the frequently clueless optimist of Chris Traeger on Parks and Recreation, has turned Dean into a vulnerable monster of self-delusion. Yet he’s a likable monster, a coddled star who’s forever learning new, amusing lessons about what it means to be an ordinary citizen. And Savage’s Stewart isn’t just a nebbishy pushover — he’s become a man who, while forever exasperated that his father (William Devane) prizes Dean’s cheesy celebrity over Stewart’s responsible family-man work ethic, has found a way to derail some of his brother’s more grandiose ego-trips with a cutting comment or a perfectly time eye-roll.

It also helps that the supporting cast is excellent. Mary Elizabeth Ellis makes a fully-rounded human out of Deb, who could have been just another harried wife/mom struggling with a career and kids. Hana Hayes and Connor Kalopsis are the rare TV-sitcom children who aren’t one-note put-down brats, and who exhibit considerable acting range. William Devane is terrific as Stewart and Dean’s dad — he’s both funny and believable as a conflicted father, and the series knows how to have fun with him, such as a recent episode that found him setting up a dating app that used as his profile picture a still from Devane in, I believe, his great 1977 Paul Schrader-written B-movie Rolling Thunder.

At work, Natalie Morales’s Claire never overdoes her deadpan sarcasm, and Steve Little has proven there’s life after his immortal performance in Eastbound & Down. The show has done an admirable job of world-building, especially in the deployment of Timothy Olyphant as his most Olyphantian — playing a version of himself as the sloe-eyed horndog star of the Grinder spin-off. And Jason Alexander is wonderful in a recurring guest role as the deeply cynical creator of Dean’s Grinder — it’s as though the show had imagined the behind-the-scenes conversations Stephen J. Cannell might have had with James Garner during The Rockford Files, or how Ann Donahue coped with David Caruso on CSI:Miami.

The questions now are (a) will The Grinder be renewed and (b) can it sustain itself? Given Fox’s iffy fortunes these days, it might be wise to renew both this and Grandfathered and see if these freshman shows with strong casts can increase their audiences for a second season. Sustaining the quality of The Grinder, though, may be trickier. The show feels, increasingly, like an impeccable, simultaneous parody of hour-long dramas and family sitcoms — a feat that might prove exhausting for its writers. Here’s hoping they can keep grinding it out at its current level.

The Grinder airs Tuesdays at 9:30 p.m. on Fox.