Stream It Or Skip It: ‘No Good Nick’ On Netflix, Where Melissa Joan Hart And Sean Astin Take In A Teen Who Wants To Rip Them Off

The teen sitcom has had the same rhythms and beats for at least thirty years now, started with Saved By The Bell and perfected by Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel. Netflix’s new teen comedy, No Good Nick, has those same beats: Wise-beyond-their-years teens? Check. Semi-clueless parents? Check. High-school hijinks? Check. But No Good Nick has something we haven’t seen much: A complex, bingeable story arc. Does it work?

NO GOOD NICK: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: The Thompson family sits in their living room and debates whether to buy a third car. Sixteen-year-old Jeremy (Kalama Epstein) has a presentation ready to make his case for the car. He sends cute animal videos to his younger sister Molly (Lauren Lindsey Donzis) because he knows she’s already against another gas hog. Then the doorbell rings.

The Gist: When Jeremy and Molly’s parents, Liz (Melissa Joan Hart) and Ed (Sean Astin) open the door, a breathless teenage girl with a duffel bag is there, claiming that no one picked her up. Her name is Nicole “Nick” Patterson (Siena Agudong), who has been going between foster homes after her parents died, but the state found that the Thompsons were distant relatives (Ed’s a second cousin, twice removed), so they sent her to live there.

Jeremy, who is always concerned about how things affect him, is skeptical about Nick, despite the fact that Nick has a letter from the state and a picture of the distant relative. Even after Nick’s social worker talks to the Thompsons about the mix-up, he’s still wary. Molly, who sees the good in everyone, volunteers to let Nick bunk with her. Ed and Liz are mixed, too; Liz just feels life is too busy, with her running her own restaurant, making a cookbook and auditioning for Top Chef, but Ed feels they should help, as she’s family.

Then Nick makes sure no one is around, breaks out a flip phone (what teenager has a flip phone?) and says “I’m in.” It turns out that she’s there to rob the Thompsons, planning it out with her foster parents Dorothy (Molly Hagan), who played the social worker and Sam (Ted McGinley), who is obviously a con artist because he wears a porkpie hat. She tells them the haul could be as much as $50k, but she’ll be the one to tell them when it’s time to rob the house.

One problem: Besides Jeremy, who finds an ID card with a different last name on it, the rest of the family has taken her in with open arms. After the confrontation with Jeremy, she accelerates the plan with Dorothy and Sam. But when she pours chloroform in a bottle of sparkling cider in order to knock the family out, she changes her mind when she sees the amazing welcome dinner Liz made for her. She calls back to say that this is now a “long con.” But little do Dorothy and Sam — much less the Thompsons — know why she’s really there.

Our Take: Let’s give credit where credit is due; despite the fact that No Good Nick is a multicamera sitcom aimed towards teens and preteens, EPs David H. Steinberg and Keetgi Kogan have tried to craft a kid sitcom that can be as bingeable as anything else on Netflix. Sure, each episode will have goofy jokes, lots of teenage wackiness and other staples of the sitcoms you’ve seen on Disney or Nick for the last 20 years. But No Good Nick has a story arc, too, and for a show like this, that’s ambitious.

And this story arc, where Nick starts to have second thoughts about ripping off the Thompsons the more she lives with them, actually has layers, believe it or not. Because we find out that Nick isn’t really a “for real orphan,” as one of Molly’s do-gooder buddies calls her, and that the Thompsons aren’t just a random well-off family. How much Steinberg, Kogan and their writers will delve into this tangled web is anyone’s guess. But the fact that we’re not just going to go from one misunderstanding to the next is refreshing for this kind of show.

Because, let’s be honest: Despite the presence of comedy veterans like Hart, Astin, Hagan and McGinley, the teens are going to be the focus of the show. And, as in most teen sitcoms, the writing and acting aren’t particularly subtle. We get it; we’re not the audience for sitcoms like these. But when you take the time to implement what seems like a complex-for-the-genre story arc, why not make the comedy a little smarter, too? Teens and preteens aren’t idiots; they can tolerate jokes that are better than some of the lines we’ll cite in the “Pilot-y Line” section below.

What Age Group Is This For?: It’s rated TV-PG, and Hart says “What the hell?” in a scene when Nick takes extreme measures to keep the family from drinking the spiked cider. So we’re thinking that the age group that’s suitable for a show like this is 11 and over.

Parting Shot: Nick looks at an old photo while he’s on the phone with someone, telling him that her foster parents have no idea that the Thompsons aren’t a random mark. Then she says, “I love you too, Dad.” The pic is of her mom and dad, with her mom holding her right after she was born.

Sleeper Star: Despite the fact that she plays the title character, we’ll still cite Agudong as Nick. When she’s in “con girl” mode, she’s a little over the top, but she does an overall good job handling Nick’s ability to lie on demand.

Most Pilot-y Line: “The point is, she’s my second cousin, and she’s already been removed twice,” says Ed. “We can’t do it to her a third time.” “Yeah, I don’t think that’s what that means,” responds Liz. Oof.

Our Call: STREAM IT. We’re intrigued by No Good Nick‘s continuing storyline, despite the fact that the show itself isn’t all that funny, at least for someone that’s (way) over voting age.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Stream No Good Nick on Netflix