{"id":616550,"date":"2024-04-12T10:01:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-12T07:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/good-times-review-netflixs-animated-sequel-improves-when-it-steps-out-from-norman-lears-shadow\/"},"modified":"2024-04-12T10:01:00","modified_gmt":"2024-04-12T07:01:00","slug":"good-times-review-netflixs-animated-sequel-improves-when-it-steps-out-from-norman-lears-shadow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/good-times-review-netflixs-animated-sequel-improves-when-it-steps-out-from-norman-lears-shadow\/","title":{"rendered":"#\u2018Good Times\u2019 Review: Netflix\u2019s Animated Sequel Improves When It Steps Out From Norman Lear\u2019s Shadow"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a36e7cfdda40\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a36e7cfdda40\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/good-times-review-netflixs-animated-sequel-improves-when-it-steps-out-from-norman-lears-shadow\/#Good_Times\" >Good Times<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    The title of Eric Monte and Mike Evans\u2019 Norman Lear-produced sitcom <em>Good Times<\/em> was designed to be welcoming and inclusive. The <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">theme<\/a> song was a litany of poverty-driven adversity \u2014 temporary layoffs, easy credit rip-offs, etc. \u2014 interjected with the chorus of \u201cGood Times!,\u201d setting up the story of the Evans family weathering the travails of the Chicago projects with a mix of pride, determination and a whole lot of dysfunctional domestic affection.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    The title of Netflix\u2019s new 10-episode animated <em>Good Times<\/em> has taken on an almost antagonistic quality, since the first trailer was released and devotees of the original blasted those two minutes for being a violation of said original\u2019s style and spirit.<\/p>\n<div class=\"review-summary-card\">\n<div class=\" lrv-u-flex lrv-u-flex-direction-column@mobile-max lrv-u-padding-a-125 u-background-color-honey-light \">\n<div class=\"lrv-u-flex lrv-u-flex-direction-column u-width-275@tablet u-border-b-1@mobile-max u-border-r-1@tablet u-border-dotted lrv-u-margin-r-150 lrv-u-padding-r-150 lrv-u-margin-r-00@mobile-max lrv-u-padding-r-00@mobile-max lrv-u-padding-b-125@mobile-max lrv-u-margin-b-075@mobile-max\">\n<h3 id=\"title-of-a-story\" class=\"c-title  lrv-u-font-family-primary u-font-size-34 u-font-size-38@desktop-xl lrv-u-line-height-small lrv-u-margin-b-125 \"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Good_Times\"><\/span>\n<p>                    Good Times      <\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>                    <span class=\"lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase lrv-u-font-family-accent lrv-u-font-weight-bold lrv-u-color-brand-primary lrv-u-font-size-16 lrv-u-display-block\">The Bottom Line<\/span><br \/>\n                    <span class=\"c-span  u-font-size-22@tablet u-font-style-italic lrv-u-font-family-secondary\"><\/p>\n<p>    After an excruciating start, the home stretch has promise.<br \/>\n    <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<p>                            <strong>Airdate: <\/strong>Friday, April 12 (Netflix)<br \/><strong>Cast: <\/strong>JB Smoove, Yvette Nicole Brown, Jay Pharoah, Marsai Martin<br \/><strong>Creators: <\/strong>Ranada Shepard and Carl Jones\u00a0<br \/>\n            <span><br \/>\n                                            <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    Cavalcade of caricatures! Good Times!<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    Drug-dealing baby! Good Times!<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    Executive Producer Seth MacFarlane! Good Times!<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    Only for adults! Good times!<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    It\u2019s impossible to review Netflix\u2019s <em>Good Times<\/em> without starting by saying what it is not \u2014 namely, it is not <em>Good Times<\/em>. Yes, the late Norman Lear remains an executive producer \u2014 Ranada Shepard and Carl Jones developed the new version \u2014 but viewers who grew up with a special place in their hearts for <em>Good Times<\/em>, a <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/watch-movies-tv-seriess\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"8\" title=\"Watch Movies &amp; TV Series\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">series<\/a> that redefined the parameters of what the Black family could be on TV, will probably struggle to make it through even the first episode. And for good reason.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    The pilot of this new <em>Good Times<\/em> is coarse and <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/general\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"3\" title=\"General\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">general<\/a>ly unpleasant and, despite almost non-stop referencing of the original series, exhibits exactly none of the charm and warmth that defined <em>Good Times<\/em>. It\u2019s also a bizarre choice to take a title associated with a show that illustrated how wide an audience you could attract even while telling a very specific story, and attach it to an adults-only animated series that alienates more than it welcomes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    BUT!<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    Let\u2019s get past the pilot and the title, because if you can do that, the series that Netflix\u2019s <em>Good Times <\/em>grows into by the end of 10 episodes isn\u2019t nearly so dire and so worthy of instant condemnation. The last three or four episodes of the season have enough funny and promising elements that you would give that show, with a different title, some credit for its potential, even if it never rises to the level of actual inspirations like <em>The PJs<\/em>, <em>The Boondocks<\/em> and <em>Bebe\u2019s Kids<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    Set in the unnamed Chicago projects that are definitely meant to recall Cabrini-Green, this <em>Good Times <\/em>focuses on Reggie (JB Smoove) and Beverly (Yvette Nicole Brown) Evans. Reggie\u2019s the grandson of John Amos\u2019 James and shares some of his hardworking ethos, even as he struggles to pay the rent with what he makes as a cab driver. Bev is determined to live up to the family\u2019s legacy, whatever that means, and has an antagonistic relationship with Delphine (Tisha Campbell), the projects\u2019 scheming president.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    So while this <em>Good Times<\/em> is a sequel and not a remake, these Evans also coincidentally have a dim-bulb, artistically brilliant son named Junior (Jay Pharoah) and their daughter is also a brilliant, budding activist (Marsai Martin\u2019s Grey). Instead of a youngest son devoted to community advocacy, though, these Evans have\u2026 Dalvin (Gerald Anthony \u201cSlink\u201d Johnson), a drug-dealing pre-toddler who does, indeed, bridge a gap between Stewie and Omar Little that nobody ever asked to have bridged.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    The first episode includes lots of references to individual episodes of <em>Good Times<\/em>, features a cameo by Jimmie Walker that you definitely won\u2019t notice and has Reggie singing the original theme song with a cockroach, endeavoring to pander to and insult fans of the original series.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    After that, though, if you didn\u2019t know the show\u2019s title, didn\u2019t recognize that the inconsistently utilized transitional music was the <em>Good Times <\/em>theme and could ignore\/repress one horrible \u201cDy-no-mite!\u201d reference, you would never make any sort of connection between the two shows.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    At that point, it becomes possible to ponder what<em> Good Times<\/em> is or isn\u2019t doing well on its own merits.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    The first couple of episodes remain more bad than good. The show is more invested in what it\u2019s defining itself against \u2014 \u201cThis ain\u2019t the damn <em>Cosby Show<\/em>,\u201d Reggie tells Junior when his academically struggling son begs him to love him as he is \u2014 than defining what its voice actually is. The humor is heavily weighted toward stereotypes and pop culture references that are at best stale and at worst \u2014 multiple Wendy Williams jokes? \u2014 tone deaf. It commits to its coarseness \u2014 like Bev s<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/trip-and-travel\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"10\" title=\"Trip &amp; Travel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">trip<\/a>ping down to lingerie to seduce Reggie because she\u2019s jealous that he befriended a service dog \u2014 but not to finding anything funny in that coarseness. Grey\u2019s attempts to aggressively spell out the show\u2019s political undertones aren\u2019t convincing. Huey Freeman, she is not.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    With the third episode, you can at least see <em>Good Times <\/em>trying to expand its horizons and show why animation would be a good vehicle for this story. Grey\u2019s first period, a standard sitcom trope, leads to a wild and gross <em>Wizard of Oz<\/em>-inspired sequence that would have been at home on <em>Big Mouth<\/em> (after a rewrite to include some sharper punchlines). This is the first episode in which <em>Good Times<\/em> exhibits some clear ideas, though the actual attempts at humor fall flat. A Donald Trump-esque figure with a G.O.P. badge trying to control young women\u2019s bodies from within is pointed, but fails to develop into anything meaningful. The same could also be said for the entire next episode, in which Reggie befriends Elon Musk and learns that the quirky billionaire has a dark side.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    You might be getting a sense now of how this <em>Good Times<\/em> is using fantastical elements to differentiate itself from an original series that wanted to be as gritty and authentic as a multi-cam comedy could be in 1974. That\u2019s how<em> Good Times <\/em>progresses and evolves, going from drug-dealing babies and talking roaches to increasingly wild film homages and set pieces. Each time I was prepared to stop watching, a reference or piece of outsized animation would have just enough satirical juice to keep me going. Each time I got fed up with how disconnected or calloused the show felt to the \u201creal\u201d Chicago, a little detail would amuse me \u2014 even something as on-the-nose as the show\u2019s treatment of \u201cMayor Heavyankles.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    It\u2019s the eighth episode when <em>Good Times<\/em> finally picks a high-concept premise and nails it \u2014 the only one of the 10 episodes that I would unapologetically praise. A takeoff on vintage comic book art and framing, \u201cBig Sister Is Watching\u201d is an original superhero\/supervillain origin story that actually made me laugh out loud several times and featured a few beats I found borderline audacious. Plus, Norman Lear makes a cameo.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    Would I have enjoyed the eighth episode as much without watching the lackluster seven previous episodes for contrast? I don\u2019t know, but it sets up a concluding run in which the show\u2019s serialized plotlines and cautionary themes concerning gentrification and racial exploitation begin to hit home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    Over the 10 episodes, which resemble vintage <em>Good Times<\/em> less and less, there are decent character arcs for Reggie, Bev, Junior and Grey, with Smoove, Brown, Pharoah and Martin doing energetic vocal work. I never warmed to Dalvin, the drug-dealing baby \u2014 I don\u2019t think the writers ever found an approach to the character that felt like a critique instead of a stereotype \u2014 but it became easier to just ignore Dalvin entirely.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n    Throw in a great developing ensemble \u2014 Cree Summer, Ego Nwodim, Heidi Gardner, Affion Crockett, Lil Rel Howery and Godfrey are among the folks playing multiple characters \u2014 and there are reasons to think that in a second season, <em>Good Times<\/em> might start to consistently deliver some, well, good times. That said, I don\u2019t know how many people are likely to last through the first half of the season, much less through the pilot, and I don\u2019t blame them.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMN63nwsw68G3Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more Like this articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/social-media\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Social Media category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/tv\/tv-reviews\/good-times-review-netflix-1235872582\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The title of Eric Monte and Mike Evans\u2019 Norman Lear-produced sitcom Good Times was designed to be welcoming and inclusive. The theme song was a litany of poverty-driven adversity \u2014 temporary layoffs, easy credit rip-offs, etc. \u2014 interjected with the chorus of \u201cGood Times!,\u201d setting up the story of the Evans family weathering the travails&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":616551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Good_Times_n_S1_E1_00_00_51_19-H-2024.jpg?w=1000","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[69365,110204,69366,11992],"class_list":["post-616550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-good-times","tag-jb-smoove","tag-norman-lear","tag-yvette-nicole-brown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}