Sure, the new CBS sitcom $#*! My Dad Says is based on a very thin gimmick: a snarky but funny and very popular Twitter feed by previously unknown writer Justin Halpern. And sure, William Shatner plays a parody of his recent TV persona, as the weird blowhard named in the show’s title. And sure, sitcoms populated with quirky characters are a dime a dozen. But Shatner is a really talented comic actor, and he and the producers have given the show and its main characters a good deal more depth than one might have any right to expect. The concept turns out to have some potential for interesting situations reminiscent of real-life problems most people encounter. The story is laid out in a simple and direct manner in the pilot, but festooned with plenty of comical one-liners. A young, unemployed man and his cantankerous, hard-nosed father attempt to reconnect after years apart because of a divorce. The son barely knows the father, but he shows up on his doorstep anyway because he has nowhere else to go, having been laid off from his job. He is in fact rather afraid of the old man, for good reason, as the latter
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