Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Lopez Vs. Lopez’ On NBC, A Sitcom Where George Lopez And His Daughter Mayan Lopez Play Themselves… Sort Of

Lopez Vs. Lopez, starring George Lopez and his daughter Mayan, is actually based on a falling-out the two of them had after George Lopez divorced Mayan’s mother, Ann Serrano, a decade ago, not long after Serrano donated a kidney to him. After not talking for a few years, the two of them reconnected around the time of the pandemic. And what’s a better way to work out family strife than to put it in front of a laughing studio audience?

LOPEZ VS. LOPEZ: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A TikTok video where Mayan Lopez, wearing a “Phenomenally Latina” t-shirt, waves. A robot voice says, “Hi, I’m Mayan. I have daddy issues.” She then pulls in her dad, George Lopez, and the robot voice explains why the two of them were estranged.

The Gist: In the TikTok, Mayan says George drinks too much, is “cheap af”, was never around, cheated on her mom, and that they haven’t spoken in years. But now he’s back in her life, helping her redo the kitchen in the house she took over when her late grandmother — George’s mom — couldn’t keep up the mortgage. Mayan lives there with her partner Quinten (Matt Shively) and their son Chance (Brice Gonzalez), whom George claims isn’t Quinton’s son because “the kid looks very Mexican and you look like a guy who wouldn’t get a rose on The Bachelorette.”

Mayan has been working on her anxiety and what triggers it via therapy and medication — she jokes on TikTok that she’s “twerking on it”, twerking while standing on her head — and when George asks if he can stay over while he works on the kitchen, she has her doubts. But she lets him stay, and of course annoys her by turning off all the lights to save money and interrupting her “busy time” with Quinten. Mayan, a veterinary tech, is also dealing with a snooty customer (Caroline Rhea) who keeps skipping out on the bills for her chihuahua, and George tells her to deal with her “The Lopez way.”

When he maxes out his credit card trying to get a refrigerator, Mayan tells him to go home. But he goes to the apartment of his ex-wife Rosie (Selenis Leyva) and tells her that he’s broke and homeless, having sold his house to pay the crew at his moving company during the pandemic, before it went under. Rosie encourages him to tell Mayan the entire truth. He does so… via TikTok.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? There is a nod in the first scene towards George Lopez’s eponymous 2002-07 sitcom, but the only real thing George Lopez and Lopez Vs. Lopez have in common is George Lopez’s sense of humor. In tone, the show feels more like Sanford And Son, just not as funny.

Our Take: Lopez Vs. Lopez is a pretty standard multicamera, studio-audience sitcom, but it’s one that has a bunch of funny moments. Mayan Lopez developed the show with showrunner Debby Wolfe — Bruce Helford, who produced George Lopez, is also an EP — based on the TikToks she made about trying to reconnect with her dad in real life after her parents’ divorce. So there’s a real-life element to the writing, as well as the chemistry between real-life father and daughter, that helps the show get past its generic elements.

While the TikTok-like videos used in the show probably wouldn’t get a ton of views, the one at the start gave us a clever bit of exposition that helps us get right into how the Lopezes interact with each other. And, while the senior Lopez can go off into his usual tangents about growing up Mexican, he also plays this version of himself well. He’s certainly flawed and opinionated, but wants to be in Mayan’s life and we’ll see him at least make a little bit of an effort, even if that effort comes with lots of six-packs of beer and an occasional toke with his buddy Oscar (Al Madrigal).

Mayan, though she’s only 26, doesn’t come into this as a rookie; she’s a veteran comic in her own right and she is very confident as the fictional version of herself. That’s one of the big reasons why Mayan and George can go toe-to-toe in their scenes and both get off funny lines. We just hope that the rest of the cast, which also includes Laci Mosley as Mayan’s work buddy Brookie, get a chance to make their characters more than generic sitcom personalities. After two episodes, there’s hope, but it’ll take awhile.

Sex and Skin: While Mayan wants her house to be “sex-positive,” the only sexiness in the series is all talk.

Parting Shot: Bunking with Chance, George starts telling a scary story that drives the kid into his parents’ room. He enjoys a beer in bed after the kid runs out.

Sleeper Star: Selenis Leyva, whom most people know from Orange Is The New Black, is a funny presence as Rosie, and she makes the most of her limited opportunities to land some funny lines.

Most Pilot-y Line: “I’m still not calling you Chance, because… there’s a chance that’s not your father,” George says to his grandson, referring to Quinten.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Lopez Vs. Lopez isn’t the “next great sitcom” or anything close. But the dynamic between George and Mayan Lopez is fun to watch, making up for the more generic parts of the series.

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.