Merry Happy Whatever Review: It’s Whatever

If a multi-cam sitcom about Christmas could be Coke or Pepsi, Merry Happy Whatever is just a neutral generic cola. 

The rising popularity of holiday movies in recent years has brought this reviewer a lot of joy. The idea of having an entire season of a sitcom to showcase one giant fuzzy-feelings-holiday-small-screen-spectacular was almost too much to handle.

Unfortunately, Merry Happy Whatever falls short of both the fuzzy feelings and the holiday spectacular I’d hoped for.

Emmy (Bridgit Mendler), a Los Angeles transplant, is coming home to Pennsylvania for her tight-knit family’s 10 Days of Christmas, bringing along her boyfriend, Matt (Brent Morin), who is planning on proposing over the holidays. Right off the bat we meet her law-enforcement widower father, Don (Dennis Quaid), who doesn’t seem fond of Matt for no particular reason, other than that he exists and is dating his daughter.

When they arrive at the family home, we meet Emmy’s two sisters, Patsy (Siobhan Murphy) and Kayla (Ashley Tisdale), along with her brother, Sean (Hayes MacArthur). They’re all varying degrees of sitcom trope characters.

Matt immediately sneaks away to ask Papa Don for his blessing to propose to Emmy, which is immediately rejected (of course). Matt’s entire purpose for the rest of the season is to make himself likable enough that Don will allow him to propose to his daughter.

If Merry Happy Whatever didn’t have a laugh track, I don’t know that there would be any laughter at all. It’s not that the jokes aren’t funny; they’re just predictable, because the target audience for this show has already seen every one of the plotlines and shenanigans in some shape or form in every other holiday movie or rom-com.

Don is a stereotypical controlling, chauvinistic, overbearing man. He’s a watered down version of Robert De Niro’s character in Meet the Parents, a movie that is far better and more deserving of your time than watching this show, even if you’ve already seen it.

There is one bright spot to Don, however, and that is his relationship with Nancy, an ER nurse that he’s grown fond of.

Due to his insecurity about dating again, he stumbles through interactions with her and reveals himself to be somewhat of a romantic. The addition of Nancy to Don’s story is the only thing that makes him feel like a fallible man and not a caricature of every other overbearing dad we’ve seen a million times over.

For example, Don leads his family to the mall like a drill sergeant on Episode 4, “Happy Mall-idays”, to secretly shop for a gift for Nancy. Everyone rolls their eyes as he purchases her a space heater, assuming this to be a dumb man-fail. 

The choice of a space heater is actually sweet, surprisingly, because Don listens to Nancy say that her feet get cold at her desk. He’s a good listener and made a choice to get her a gift that held some meaning. 

Unfortunately, these human moments are few and far between for Don, and he’s mostly unlikable.

Considering that creator Tucker Cawley’s previous credits include Everybody Loves Raymond, which this reviewer regards as a gold-standard in sitcoms, it’s surprising that none of the quick-wit family dysfunction of the Barones is even close to represented with Merry Happy Whatever.

The bones are there; storytelling about infertility, exploring sexuality, questioning religious beliefs, all of which could be a basis for some smart comedy. There is a way to bring levity to these heavy moments — but not with a clunky laugh track and jokes delivered without heart behind them.

That’s where Everybody Loves Raymond succeeded as the ultimate dysfunctional family multi-cam. At their core, the Barones loved each other, so their jabs at one another never felt truly mean-spirited. The Quinn family feels like a group of oddball, disconnected characters rather than a family, like the Barones.

Patsy and her husband Todd (Adam Rose) feel out of place in this universe. Sean and his wife Joy (Elizabeth Ho) are a fleshed out unit, but truly should have their own show, rather than being a part of this one because their dynamic was actually my favorite of the series, but had too little time given to it. 

The only character who feels like a sibling to Emmy is Tisdale’s Kayla. They spend the most screen time together, with Kayla also serving as the standout character in this muddy whatever.

Kayla’s husband leaves her about five minutes into the show, which sends her on a personal journey of exploring herself, including her self-discovery that she’s into girls. She’s the member of the Quinn family who bonds the most with Matt, the only person who knows this secret, somehow spending more heartfelt moments with him than Emmy does. 

Yes, for those of you excited about the Undateable reunion between Bridgit Mendler and Brent Morin, don’t get too hyped. Just watch Undateable again, where their chemistry was far better. It’s not on the part of the actors — the material was better on Undateable as well.

Merry Happy Whatever misses its moments to be great.

Where episodes could be used for effective storytelling such as Episode 5, “Twas the Night Before the 4th Night of Hanukkah” during which the family is struggling to get ready in 47 minutes for midnight mass, the episode falls short of what could be a great moment, a countdown to Patsy announcing her pregnancy after her fertility struggle. Instead, she blurts it out right away and the 47 minutes (25, actually) feel like a wasted clock to nothing.

This happens over and over throughout the season. Again, the bones are there. They’re just not totally fleshed out.

Bottom line, there’s a good premise somewhere in this show, it just isn’t executed to the level of greatness at which it could have been. It’s as if the writers walked a tightrope and focused so hard on keeping their balance that they failed to take the risks that could have elevated the act altogether.

If you’re looking for the warm holiday fuzzies after you finish your Thanksgiving dinner, this won’t be the thing that gives them to you. You’d be better off putting this on as background noise while you wrap your gifts in a few weeks.  

What did you think of this episode of Merry Happy Whatever? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Merry Happy Whatever is streaming now on Netflix.

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