Tell-Tale TV Panel: The Grinder Season 1

Unfortunately, The Grinder was taken from us too soon, but it doesn’t mean we can’t reflect upon what brief time we had together.

So, how did The Grinder do in its short but sweet run? See what some of our writers had to say, and then don’t forget to leave your thoughts in a comment below.

Our panelists are:

• Ashley Bissette Sumerel, founder and editor-in-chief of Tell-Tale TV
• Christine Laskodi, associate editor for Tell-Tale TV
• Lissete (Lizzie) Lanuza Saenz, associate editor for Tell-Tale TV

On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rank the season overall?

Lizzie: I’m going to give it a solid nine. This was, for me, the best new show of the season. Why did you have to do this, FOX? Why?

Christine: Agree with Lizzie! Solid 9. I also agree that it was the best new show of the season, and that FOX made a huge mistake.

Ashley: It’s unanimous. Such a great show, and it’s so sad it won’t be back for another season.

What was the season’s biggest mistake?

Lizzie: If anything, the balance wasn’t as good as it could have been. The kids got little screen-time, and Mary Elizabeth Eliis, a great comedian, didn’t get to interact with Fred Savage and Rob Lowe as much as I would have liked to see.

Same goes for Natalie Morales. I could have done with a little more of her. But this is really nitpicking, trying to find something that wasn’t perfect. The season was good. The show was good. I’m sad to see it gone.

Christine: I actually really liked Mary Elizabeth Ellis’ amount of screen-time. I was afraid they’d overuse her, especially after her wildly funny plotline where she became her assistant’s assistant. But I do agree that a huge misstep was made with Natalie Morales. She deserved much more screen-time. Her chemistry with Rob Lowe was second only to Fred Savage’s.

Ashley: I think they overdid the back and forth of Dean getting his feelings hurt, then coming back to the firm, then his feelings get hurt again, and on and on. It got to be a little too much. But again, this was a great first season, and thinking of mistakes actually took me a little while.

What worked really well this season?

Lizzie: The Rob Lowe/Fred Savage interactions. I watched the Pilot and thought, okay, this is funny, but this can’t possibly be sustainable. And then they not only sustained it, they got better and better.

Both Lowe and Savage were believable as brothers, and it seemed like they really cared for each other, even when they disagreed on just about everything. Their chemistry was so on point that whoever was on screen with them benefited from the magic. Again, I don’t know how FOX could cancel this show. I really don’t.

Christine: I really loved the show within a show. It reminded me a lot of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, when they would cut to Sarah’s dumb cop investigation show. I always loved the way that they’d incorporate the absurdity of the fake TV episode into a real life moment, and most of all, I loved watching Stewart be exasperated by it.

Ashley: The absurdity of all of it, from the show within the show, like Christine said, to Dean’s over the top character, and the way everyone reacted to him — all of that worked better than it seems like it would have. I think everyone just really went for it, and it was so, so funny.

What was the biggest surprise of the season?

Lizzie: How well it all worked, for a show that was often very meta and complex. It was funny. It was heartwarming, and though it could get deep, it still had something for everyone. You didn’t need to get the meta of it all to enjoy the show, but if you did, it was like another layer of enjoyment in what was supposed to be a simple family show.

Christine: How funny Fred Savage is! I had obviously seen him in The Wonder Years, and I knew that he directed many episodes of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but I had no idea that he could simultaneously play the straight man and the joker with such outstanding results.

I’d say that, even despite the show’s premature cancellation, Fred Savage deserves an Emmy for playing this role anyway. He may have been the funniest man on television this season.

Ashley: I think I was surprised by the show in general, but mostly I was surprised by how much I liked the interactions between Rob Lowe and Fred Savage. They made a great pairing.

Sadly, the show has been canceled, but did you have any hopes for what a Season 2 would look like?

Lizzie: I hoped for a little more balance, the same hear that Stewart and Dean had given me so far, and just more Sanderson family fun. Because I had fun watching this season. And I’m going to miss this show. I really am.

Christine: I would have loved to see what Dean would have made out of Stewart’s son. That relationship dynamic was one of my favorites. I, too, would have just wanted to see more Sanderson family interactions, more stuff with their mother, and more stunt casting that works, like the entire Timothy Olyphant storyline. As I’m typing that, I’m questioning why no one has picked it up yet. This show was genius comedy that deserves another go-around.

Ashley: More development of characters and more overarching cases. Basically, I just wanted it to keep going and become more and more fleshed out as it continued. It’s such a bummer that it wasn’t renewed.

The Grinder Review: Full Circle (Season 1 Episode 22)

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