I watch "The War at Home" so you don't have to: Episode 201 - Back to School

Boy, after a summer of re-runs, Dave Gold (Michael Rapaport) gets thrown right into the middle of some sticky situations. He has to fight The War at Home on all four fronts (three kids and the wife). Incredible!

It’s the first day of school, and Dave and wife (Vicki) are thrilled that they can grab a “nooner.” Needless to say, the afternoon delight is put on hold when they return to find daughter (Hillary) skipping school. What the--?

Hillary’s truancy will likely lead her to a teen-mother-stripper lifestyle (as indicated by a thoughtful and subtle Family-Guy rip-off cutaway scene). To compound the problems, oldest son Larry has decided to get a fresh start on his junior year by switching his name to Gideon. Also, youngest son Mike is considering breaking up with his girlfriend of two months, Heidi. This only concerns Dave because he enjoys hanging out with Heidi’s father. When Dave discusses this with Vicki, she reveals that she’s considered breaking up with him, but that she’s never gone through with it.

So many tough problems and just 22 minutes to resolve them? Buckle your safety belts.

Trouble with Hillary: Dave is heading out of his office to play golf when he’s confronted by his inscrutable oriental boss. The boss says, and I paraphrase, “Dave, you have potential, but you goof off too much. If only you would buckle down and work harder. We’re talking about your future, here.” Two things worth mentioning: 1.) They were in no way talking about Dave’s future. 2.) This is the boss’ (the only minority character in the episode) only appearance. His sole purpose is to offer this enlightening advice, which makes Dave realize Hillary is just like him. This scene was so incredibly contrived, as there was no previous screwing-off-at-work behavior to warrant such an insight from the Supervisor ex machina.

Mike’s girlfriend and her dad: No matter what Dave does, it’s the opposite of what Mike intends. Mike changes his mind about breaking up with Heidi, but Dave tells Heidi’s dad otherwise, which leads to Heidi breaking up with Mike (It's like watching The Importance of Being Earnest, but without the humor). Mike is furious, but bounces back when he gets offers from other eligible 15-year-olds. Dave makes things right by visiting Heidi in person to patch things up. This is a heart-warming scene in which the relentlessly twitchy Rapaport gets out-acted by, well, a 15-year-old girl. The pair hugs it out upon reaching a resolution, and Heidi's dad catches them in the embrace – a moment as awkward as it was predictable.

Vicki’s break-up inclinations: It turns out that people in relationships can become irritated with one another and consider ending said relationship. It also turns out that husbands and wives can work out problems and love each other despite such occasional problems. Thanks for the lesson, The War at Home.

Larry/Gideon: Okay. This storyline had as many legs as a watermelon. He changes his name to Gideon. He still isn’t cool. An Israeli exchange student with the same name beats him up. He’s Larry again. What really takes the cake is that we don't actually see the confrontation between Larry-Gideon and the Israeli exchange student ex machina. We learn about it second-hand from Larry-Gideon, who in no way looks like he's been in anything close to a fight. Here's a thought, if a storyline doesn't even warrant the 15-minutes it would take a make-up artist to give Larry a black eye, let's just skip it altogether. This storyline was straight balls.

Here are a few other lowlights that are worth mentioning. After all, if I watch The War at Home so you don’t have to, I want to do all I can to justify your refusal to watch such unapologetic ass-clownery.

To show just how “behind the times” and “backwards” dad is, he often slightly mispronounces common modern devices. For instance, he referred to a “Blackberry” as a “Blueberry,” and referred to a “Bluetooth” as a “Sidetooth.” Sadly, these mistakes don’t even fall under the malaprop category. Malaprops are actually funny.

A Family Guy-style cutaway to a lawyer was abysmal. The lawyer stated that “If you’ve ever been in a relationship with Dave Gold, you may be entitled to damages.” This was not clever. It was not funny. It was, though, a front-runner for “Just shaking my head moment of the week.” So, without further adieu, let’s break down the stats and key plays:

Times Dave was confused: 4
Pieces of sage advice offered by Dave: 4 (The best being, “Go ahead and be a goof-off. You’ll get by. I did.”)
Times Dave worried about daughter: 2 (And only one had to do with sex. Outstanding!!)
White screens/Family Guy cutaways: 10 (The main problem with these - they go on a second too long. This leaves some seriously poor actors in, well, white space. Believe me. They don't have the chops to pull off these extraneous seconds. They usually ham it up like they're in a junior high school play. Just awful).
Canned Laughter uses: 97 (ooh… so close to the century mark – that’s 4.4 laughs per minute if you're counting, or just over one laugh every 15 seconds. Astounding.)
Actual laughter from Joey D: big fat nothing (What's wrong with me? 97 chances to laugh and not one of them is actually funny? Am I so out of touch? No. It's the children who are wrong).
Moment closest to actual humor: Mike claims Heidi hasn’t let him get to “second base” yet. Dave responds, “Not even over the shirt?” The elements of humor are there – dad asking juvenile and inappropriate question to 15-year-old son. Unbelievably, Rapaport fails to pull it off. Go figure.
Just shaking my head moment(s): The entire Larry-becomes-Gideon-becomes-Larry storyline. Canned laughter was liberally used after the following exchanges: Hillary calls Larry Gidget (minimal synthetic laughter). Larry corrects: “Gideon. I’m Gideon!” (Gales of synthetic laughter). Someone refers to Larry as “Larry.” Dave corrects, “His name is Gideon.” (Gales of synthetic laughter). Is this funny? Seriously? Would real living, breathing people laugh that hard at something so petty and stupid? Aaaaaahhhhh!

Incidentally, the following companies gave Fox their advertising dollar during last Sunday’s episode. Please consider boycotts.

Subway Restaurant, Lipton, Toyota, Jackass Number Two, Oral B, The U.S. Army, Burger King, Gridiron Gang, Chevrolet, CBN News (700 Club), KFC and Pledge.