Tim Allen isn't 'Shifting Gears'
by EG
If you think something feels familiar about a sitcom in which a conservative father clashes with his less-conservative daughter, it's probably because you've seen the premise executed several times before. But in 2025, American culture wars are back in fashion, and vocal conservative Tim Allen is back to have his say once again. In Shifting Gears, Allen plays a conservative father who clashes with his less-conserevative daughter. Read on for details.
Last week, Fox premiered the new comedy Going Dutch, about a ranting conservative father (Denis Leary) forced to reconnect with his estranged liberal daughter (Taylor Misiak). You know the father’s an unreconstructed dinosaur because he laments that it isn’t politically correct to say “midget” anymore — but at least through the episodes I’ve seen, he hasn’t made a joke about anybody’s pronouns, which feels like progress.
This week, ABC premieres Shifting Gears, about a ranting conservative father (Tim Allen) forced to reconnect with his estranged liberal daughter (Kat Dennings). You know the father’s an unreconstructed dinosaur because he laments that it isn’t politically correct to say “dwarf” anymore. But rather than making a joke about anybody’s pronouns, he says he won’t make a joke about anybody’s pronouns, because he hates everybody equally. Which feels like … progress?
It’s early in the year, but it’s already feeling like something hacky is in the water at the ol’ broadcast sitcom production mill.
A single-cam comedy with an international setting and a military backdrop, Going Dutch at least tries for some variation in tone and format. Does it succeed? Only occasionally.
Shifting Gears is far more conventional multicam stuff, a mighty basic sitcom in which the studio audience roars for Tim Allen’s first onscreen appearance and the intended at-home audience is likely to do the same. (Kat Dennings’ first onscreen appearance also gets applause, but that feels like more of a courtesy.)
The title and premise of Shifting Gears seem to be about, well, shifting gears in your life and your attitude, but the two episodes sent to critics suggest little interest in giving viewers anything other than exactly what they want and expect. So if you have a hankering for a Tim Allen comedy in which a grouchy boomer goes on rants about nothing in particular because everything in particular is wrong with kids today, Shifting Gears has you taken care of. If that sounds painful, your opinion isn’t likely to shift gears.
Allen plays Matt, a set-in-his-ways widower who runs a garage — technically a “rustomod” if such distinctions matter to you — that restores and enhances classic cars. Everybody knows that if you get Matt started, he’ll ramble about anything related to the state of the world, much to the amusement or chagrin of employees including Gabe (Seann William Scott) and Stitch (Daryl Mitchell) — and possibly one woman who has one line of dialogue in one scene about how she’s a lesbian, but who’s mostly there so that we know Matt has no problems with lesbians.
Enter Riley (Dennings), who was supposed to go to law school and have a big career, but instead got pregnant out of high school and moved to Las Vegas with a bass player. Which is a cardinal sin because Matt may be tolerant of lesbians and people who give their pronouns, but he has no use for bass players.
Matt isn’t wrong, because Riley, finally tired of her husband’s long absences and philandering, has packed things up and moved back to “Los Angeles” — I think, but I’m not really sure and it definitely doesn’t matter — with son Carter (Maxwell Simkins) and daughter Georgia (Barrett Margolis). Riley and Matt have barely spoken for years — not even at her mom’s funeral — but they need to patch up old wounds and Riley needs to figure out what her life is like now that she’s … shifting gears.
Matt also isn’t wrong because the show’s sympathies feel weighted toward his side of the emotional ledger. In Going Dutch, there’s no question that although Misiak’s character is perhaps a little immature, it’s Leary’s character who is going to need to change and evolve as the story progresses. It’s hard to tell if it was creators Mike Scully and Julie Thackery Scully’s initial intent or if that became the execution once Tim Allen got involved, but Shifting Gears is comfortably and consistently on Matt’s side.
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.