Fuller House is such a strange animal of a show.  It is simultaneously a nostalgic look back at the most saccharine (And I say that as a complement) sitcom put to television, but at the same time seems to want to modernize a show that honestly should’ve kept the rose tinted glasses on.  The first episode “Our Very First Show, again” seems to be a good representative of what that will mean for the show going forward.

Let’s start with the good:  All the old stuff.  Fuller House knows what people liked about Full House, and wow do they nail the non-threatening, ultra-safe, goodie-two shoes aesthetic.  Every character is adorable.  They’re like greeting card characters come alive.  Which is keeping in theme with the old show.  In addition, just about all of the old cast returns and slips back into their old roles well enough.  Danny Tanner (Bob Saget) is still neurotic and fatherly, Uncle Jesse (John Stamos) and Aunt Becky (Lori Loughlin) don’t look like they’ve aged a day, Kimmy Gibbler (Andrea Barber) is still the weird neighbor, now housemate.  It’s a very comforting sort of comedy they do, very safe but it feels fresher in the modern era.  Everyone else is as you would anticipate, assuming you’ve seen the show.  Which I feel is important to note, because if you don’t I’m sorry to say the show is maybe not for you, because nostalgia and callbacks were the only thing that kept me from groaning throughout the 45-minute run time.

Which brings us to the new stuff, which is almost entirely awful.  Now maybe this is generational thing, but I hate our new children.  So DJ Tanner (Candace Cameron Bure) and Kimmy Gibbler are both single mothers.  DJ has 3 boys, Kimmy a girl.  The kids aren’t so hot.  Well DJ’s baby is pretty cool, he’s terrified of that puppet Uncle Joey (Dave Coulier) has.  Oh also the other set of twins from the show are grown up twenty-something layabouts.  They’re not important but for the sake of completion I ought to mention them.  In any case, the children are… children.  DJ’s oldest and Kimmy’s are barely in the pilot.  But her middle child, he’s something else.  His character seems to be based around the concept of “What if Danny Tanner was smaller and also did a ton of cocaine.”  Because this kid is bouncing off the walls and cleaning and having heart palpitations and life is clearly just too much for the poor guy to handle.  Which was funny in a can’t-look-away kind of way.

Unfortunately, none of the non-callback jokes really land, which doesn’t bode well for the rest of the series.  There’s also this weird attempt to make everything edgier.  I don’t need people to make jokes about Danny Tanner incorporating cleanliness into his sexual life and how that turns his wife on.  I don’t need to know that Kimmy Gibbler is such a good partner that it will make any man hers in an instant.

Overall I’d say Fuller House is mostly inoffensive and if you’re nostalgic or just really enjoyed the original it’s probably worth watching at least the pilot, if the not the show probably won’t work for you.

Recommendation: Worth a Shot