Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Dad Stop Embarrassing Me!’ On Netflix, Where Jamie Foxx Is A Single Dad Dealing With His Very Independent Teen Daughter

It’s been 20 years since Jamie Foxx starred in a sitcom: The Jaime Foxx Show ran on the WB from 1996-2001. In the meantime, he’s won an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a Grammy, and has made more of a name for himself as a movie star. But it seems fitting that he’s back on TV in a sitcom reminiscent of his last one. Read on for more…

DAD STOP EMBARRASSING ME!: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Brian Dixon (Jamie Foxx) and his daughter Sasha (Kyla-Drew) are sitting in the office of a therapist named Sheila (Luenell).

The Gist: The father-daughter pair are in therapy at the suggestion of Brian’s cop friend Johnny Williams (Jonathan Kite). The problem is, Sheila thinks that the two of them represent some May-December romance instead of a father and daughter. But once that very uncomfortable misunderstanding is cleared, we get to the heart of the issue.

Sasha moved down to Atlanta to live with Brian after her mother died. During the first 15 years of her life, Brian built a successful cosmetics and lifestyle business, and whenever Sasha visited, she always felt like she wasn’t her father’s priority. But Brian is vowing to do things differently now that she’s coming to live with him, at least that’s what he tells his father Pops (David Alan Grier) and sister Chelsea (Porscha Coleman).

Of course, with Sasha due from the airport, he has to get Courtney (Zaria), one of the models that work for his company, out of his bedroom; she very insistently wants to have some fun with him. “Back in the day, I would have tried to knock all the spice of that jerk chicken,” Brian tells the audience, but he’s trying to be responsible.

Sahsa arrives — her texts to her dad that she landed went unanswered — with Courtney semi-dressed in Brian’s bed. To say things are off on the wrong foot is an understatement. Brian promises Sasha that the two of them can have dinner at the sushi joint they enjoyed during her last visit, right after the pop-up event he’s planned to help get him some new investors. He’s told that the investors want to have a drink with him, so he fobs Sasha off on Stacy (Heather Hemmens), who he calls the “backbone” of his company. When he never gets to the sushi place, Brian knows he has to make a grand gesture to tell Sasha things are different now.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Dad Stop Embarrassing Me! could be a continuation of Foxx’s previous sitcom, The Jamie Foxx Show, if Foxx’s character in that show had a kid and started a cosmetics company.

Our Take: In all the years that Jamie Foxx was doing dramas and action pictures, winning an Oscar in the process, we started to forget how funny of a physical comedian he was; after all, it’s been 20 years since The Jamie Foxx Show went off the air. Dad Stop Embarrassing Me!, which he co-created with TV vet Jim Patterson, reminded us of what he’s capable of. Seeing him try to wobble around in the skinny jeans Courtney bought for him, then get whacked in the nards as he slid down the bannister in them was pretty funny.

There are other funny pieces of this traditional sitcom, which would have felt comfortable at Foxx’s old WB home; those moments are mainly generated by David Alan Grier. It’s widely acknowledged that Foxx and DAG are way too close in age to play a father and son, but Grier makes this work because he plays Pops as a guy who is in a lot of ways less mature than Brian is. He smokes weed, he thinks an Uber Pool requires wearing a Speedo, and he hits on young women by pretending to be Justin Bieber’s father. Just seeing him come in with his harmonica while Brian tries to apologize to Sasha via a mariachi band generated a laugh.

It seems that DAG is getting free reign to drop in lines and other gags to enhance Pops’ eccentric character. That and Foxx’s physical comedy helps the show transcend its less-than-funny trappings. Couching the plot of the first episode around this creepy couples’ therapy session was bad enough; having Brian address the audience about what he’d do “back in the day” was even more confusing. A straight-ahead premise pilot would have worked better in this case and would have left more room for the characters to shine through; as it was, there was still too much space given over to Foxx doing things like his “meh” Obama impression.

There is a germ of a good overall show there, especially because Kyla-Drew is already a mature comedic performer at the tender age of 17. The relationship between Sasha and Brian will be the key to whether Dad Stop Embarrassing Me! becomes anything but a showcase for Foxx to do his shtick. Given that Corrine Foxx is one of the EPs, and the show is based loosely around her relationship with her dad, there’s a good chance that might happen.

Sex and Skin: None, really, beyond Courtney’s antics and Sheila the therapist seemingly in heat. But the show is definitely not for kids, as its TV-14 rating suggests; DAG especially uses Netflix’s looser rules on swearing to his advantage.

Parting Shot: Sheila kicks Sasha out, puts her head in Brian’s lap and says, “Last I checked, this couch was a pullout, so….”

Sleeper Star: From the awkward greeting Heather Hemmens’ character Stacy gives Brian, we have a strong hunch that there’s going to be some exploration of the crush she obviously has on him and that he’s obviously oblivious to. We’ve seen far too many sitcoms in our lives to think otherwise.

Most Pilot-y Line: Even though the lines Foxx utters when he addresses the camera are actually funny, the device is distracting and there isn’t any rhyme or reason as to when they pop up.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Dad Stop Embarrassing Me! has more than enough going for it to recommend, mainly stemming from the combo of Foxx and Grier, who have been buddies since their In Living Color days 30 years ago, have with each other. But it has yet to find its comedic rhythm.

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, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream Dad Stop Embarrassing Me! On Netflix