Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Mom, Don’t Do That!’ On Netflix, A Taiwanese Dramedy About A Widow Finding A New Love, Much To Her Daughters’ Chagrin

If a show like Cougar Town was done in Taiwan, what would it look like? It might look like the new dramedy Mom, Don’t Do That! It’s about a 60-year-old widow who wants to live life and find love after her husband died. Her two daughters have their own dating problems. So will they face the great dating unknown together?

MOM, DON’T DO THAT!: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: In a Taipei rainstorm, a woman frantically walks towards a police station while talking on the phone.

The Gist: Chen Ru-rong (Alyssa Chia), a teacher and romance novelist, has been dealing with her mother, Wang Mei-Mei (Billie Wang) since her father died. Her mom’s moved in, and she’s doing a lot dating, mostly with married men. She’s going to the police because Mei-Mei hasn’t been at home in a day or so, so Ru-rong thinks she’s missing. Mei-Mei is actually going hiking with one of those married men, whose wife barrels into their flat looking for him and threatening violence.

Ru-rong hates that her mother is going with married men, and that her 60-year-old mom dresses like a “young lady”. But Mei-mei not only wants to be married again (she calls it a career in a white-walled sequence where she looks like she’s talking to a therapist), but just wants to live boldly. The conservative and perpetually single Ru-rong is annoyed and jealous at the same time.

Then Ru-rong’s younger sister, Ruo-min (Chia-Yen Ko) shows up; she had moved out to live with her mooching boyfriend Cha (Austin Lin), but she caught him cheating on her. She mopes around as Ru-rong says she can do better, like the members of the boy bands they used to listen to when they were kids.

The three women make a wager; whoever finds “Mr. Right” first gets to go on an overseas trip paid for by the other two. Mei-Mei decides to find love on an online dating site and dump her married beau. Ru-rong decides to pretend to date a female colleague to get her mother off her back. And Ruo-min reconnects with Cha, but just as f-buddies (as far as she’s concerned).

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Mom, Don’t Do That! feels like a goofier version of the first half-season of Cougar Town, where it was less wine-fueled hangout comedy and more of a “Courteney Cox dating younger guys” comedy.

Our Take: Netflix’s notes on Mom, Don’t Do That! says it’s based on a novel, which further research says is based on a true story. If that’s true, it makes sense; we could see this being a sweet memoir about a 40-year-old woman who watches her mother get back out there and discovers herself. It can also have the secondary story of the sisters and mother bonding over this shared desire to find “the one.”

That’s certainly what we see here. It’s a dramedy that will have romcom elements to it, but at its heart it’s about this family and how tight-knit they are, despite the sniping we hear them direct towards each other.

Because, let’s be honest here: Is watching a sixtysomething find love online something that’s novel at this point, even in Taiwan? Maybe things there are a bit more old-fashioned than they are here, especially given how Mei-mei considers herself “unemployed” because she’s a widow. But that by itself isn’t fodder for a show anymore. But the dynamic between Mei-mei, Ru-rong and Ruo-min has more than enough possibilities to make for a funny, heartfelt series.

There is also going to be the presence of their father/Mei-Mei’s husband to deal with. It turns out the therapy sessions we see each woman doing is to the voice of their father, and it seems like he’ll always be with them. How it informs what they do as they try to find love will be an interesting aspect to follow.

Sex and Skin: A shot of a woman that’s not Ruo-min gyrating on top of Cha, but it’s pretty covered up.

Parting Shot: Ru-rong is writing while eating some of 7-Eleven’s finest junk food. She gets up to clean up and she sees an extraordinarily handsome man (Chris Wu) walk through the door.

Sleeper Star: Vicky Tseng plays Kate Zeng, an engaged but flirtatious colleague of Ru-rong’s, who hatches the idea to use a female colleague to win the bet with Ru-rong’s mother. In her one scene, she was funny and engaging, and a good contrast to Alyssa Chia’s downtrodden (but funny) Ru-rong.

Most Pilot-y Line: As we’ve cited many times, we don’t love the style of East Asian comedies telegraphing its funny physical comedy with sound effects and musical cues. There’s a lot of that here, and it’s distracting.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Mom, Don’t Do That! is a cute show about three women who are really hurting after the death of the family patriarch, and also ready for love.

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.