Man with a Plan (2016)

It’s a very traditional and very safe sitcom.

A show that offers few laughs and just as much entertainment.

Man with a Plan just makes you wish he’d take his sincere befuddlement elsewhere, someplace that mattered. Simply put, Matt LeBlanc is too good to be this irrelevant.

Neither [Man With a Plan or The Great Indoors] is groundbreaking or particularly exciting; both are quite likable and solidly constructed.

In other words, all the same stuff you've seen on every TV medical drama back to the days of Ben Casey and Dr. Kildare, from which Pure Genius is indistinguishable except for the color photography.

A wan, weary network-sitcom-by-committee--oh, and Matt LeBlanc, too.

LeBlanc is on Joey autopilot here, sometimes landing a punchline with his well-honed comic timing, but more frequently unable to commit to exactly how dumb Adam is supposed to be, an obliviousness that varies by scene.

It’s a shopworn premise to be sure, but the delivery system overcomes much of that. LeBlanc fine-tunes his doofus Joey persona and smoothly rolls with it at home, at school and in the workplace he shares with older brother Don (a serviceable Kevin Nealon).

As far as comfortable, mediocre family sitcoms go, Man with a Plan appears to be finding a nice groove, establishing a patter between easy stereotypes and incrementally encouraging Adam to grow.