Stream It or Skip It? ‘Grandfathered’ and ‘The Grinder’

Here at Decider, we’ve committed ourselves to watching the fall pilots for you and reporting back to help you prioritize your viewing using our super-scientific rating system. Below, we tell you everything you need to know about Grandfathered and The Grinder.

A Guide to Our Rating System

Opening Shot: The opening of a pilot can set a mood for the entire show (think Six Feet Under); thus, we examine the first shot of each pilot.
The gist: The “who, what, where, when, why?” of the pilot.
Our take: What did we think? Are we desperate for more, or engaging in a desperate, Faustian bargain to get those 43 minutes back?
Sex and Skin: That’s all you care about anyway, right? We let you know how quickly the show gets down and dirty.
Parting Shot: Where does the pilot leave us? Hanging off a cliff, or running for the hills?
Sleeper Star: Basically, someone in the cast who is not the top-billed star (Sorry, Rob Lowe!) who shows great promise.
Most Pilot-y Line: Pilots have a lot of work to do: world building, character establishing, and stakes raising. Sometimes that results in some pretty clunky dialogue.
Our call: We’ll let you know if you should, ahem, Stream It or Skip It.

Grandfathered

Opening Shot: The show opens on Jimmy (John Stamos), a sexy, successful, 50-year-old restaurateur, plucking out a gray hair. The show then launches him into a montage of schmooze, charming customers old and young, male and female. Sort of like John Stamos in real life.
The gist: John Stamos stars as the ultimate bachelor who discovers he’s not only a father, but a grandfather. Grandfathered is an unconventional, sophisticated comedy about coming of age — at any age.
Our take: It feels unfair to judge a comedy on its pilot. There’s so much exposition to get out of the way, so much plot to introduce, that it can be difficult to get a sense of its comedic point of view. Some shows (ahem, Parks and Recreation) take entire seasons to find their comedic sweet spot. Grandfathered, on the other hand, gets its premise out in the open within the first two minutes and launches right into a confident, well-paced show. Sure, a few of the comedic beats fall flat — Jimmy slaps an employee who makes a comment about his age as if he was in a vaudevillian revue — but the chemistry between the characters is strong. And who would have suspected that an extended sequence referencing Kramer vs. Kramer would make us well up a little bit?
Sex and Skin: The show teases a shirtless Stamos 28 minutes in, as Jimmy prepares to undergo a surgical procedure to save his granddaughter’s life, until he learns that his ex-fling, Sara (Paget Brewster), was tricking him. The show knows what we want, but it’s going to make us wait for future episodes — or check in on Stamos’ Instagram account — to see it.
Parting Shot: Jimmy steps out onto his balcony as the family he never knew he had gathers inside. He looks in, uncertain, and takes a drink.
Sleeper Star: Kelly Jenrette, as Jimmy’s restaurant manager, steals every scene she’s in with her perfect, deadpan delivery. Honorable mention goes to Ravi Patel, who plays Jimmy’s head chef. For a show that will likely have quite a few more work-life balance storylines, you couldn’t have better coworkers.
Most Pilot-y Line:  The show’s creator, Danny Chun, has spent some time around a few sitcoms (The Simpsons, The Office, Happy Endings) and clearly has a working knowledge of sitcom tropes. The second Sara utters a schmaltzy, pilot-y line, he immediately has her correct herself: “What am I saying? That’s not me. I’m cool. I watch Portlandia. I almost went to Coachella last year until I decided not to.”
Our call: Stream it. The classic “single dude doesn’t know what to do with a baby” story lines can only last so long, and, once they do, we suspect there’s an even better show underneath.
[Where to stream Grandfathered]

The Grinder

Opening Shot: The Grinder begins with an ending. The Sanderson family gathers to watch the series finale of The Grinder, the fictional television show that gives this real one its name, which stars Dean Sanderson (Rob Lowe). It’s bad. It’s really bad. In the way that most TV shows that find a wide audience tend to be. Dean’s younger brother Stewart (Fred Savage), when asked what he thinks, struggles to find anything positive to say.
The gist: The Grinder follows a TV actor who returns to his hometown to work as a lawyer after his long-running television series, The Grinder (on which he played a lawyer), is suddenly cancelled. His family, as it happens, are actual lawyers who run an actual law firm and, having believed that his television experience would make him qualified to be a lawyer, he decides to join their firm despite having only played one on the small screen.
Our take: You’re going to hear a lot about Rob Lowe when people talk about this show. And rightfully so: he is in the possession both chiseled cheekbones and goofball humor. But Fred Savage is the show’s secret weapon. After years behind the camera, Savage returns to primetime playing the perfect straight man to Lowe’s space cadet. His Stewart has worked hard to get where he’s gotten — even if that just means he’s a middling lawyer in the middle of nowhere — and his timid but potent “not on my watch” vibe when dealing with his actor brother both grounds the show in some recognizable reality and allows Lowe to play off him even more (most effectively shown in a scene where, using some pretty convoluted logic, Dean gets Stewart to admit that, sure, he’d rather have a heart attack next to Noah Wylie than have a heart attack not next to Noah Wylie). The show, primarily through a perfectly cast guest appearance by Kumail Nanjiani as opposing counsel, understands how ridiculous it is that a TV actor be allowed — encouraged, even, by a starstruck judge — to take over a court of law, but its part of that knowingness that makes it so much fun.
Sex and Skin: Thirty seconds in, we’re treated to a shirtless Rob Lowe, playing The Grinder, getting his onscreen wife pregnant.
Parting Shot: Stewart, after finally standing up for himself and sending Dean away, has a change of heart and asks his brother to stay. Dean takes his hand and raises it triumphantly, the way they only do on TV shows.
Sleeper Star: Try as you might, wise-cracking kid and Stewart’s long-suffering wife, this show is all about Lowe and Savage.
Most Pilot-y Line:  “It’s going to be fine, honey. He’s leaving in, like, three days.” Of course he is.
Our call: Stream it. And keep an ear out for the Chris Traeger — Lowe’s relentlessly upbeat character on Parks and Recreation — reference.
[Where to stream The Grinder]

Brett Barbour is a writer who lives in Brooklyn and is prone to binge-watching.

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