Fox's The Moodys is a lot like Netflix's Merry Happy Whatever, but slightly better

The Hollywood Reporter

The Moodys starring Denis Leary and Merry Happy Whatever led by Dennis Quaid are both Christmas comedy event series that revolve around grouchy, tradition-obsessed dads. "If Leo Tolstoy were to develop a holiday special — I'm thinking either War & Peace & Mistletoe or A Very Anna Karenina Christmas — he would be forced to acknowledge that while happy families are all alike and each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, every dysfunctional family at Christmastime is, apparently, oddly alike," says Daniel Fienberg. "That's my critical takeaway after spending much of the past two weeks watching eight episodes of Netflix's Merry Happy Whatever and six episodes of Fox's The Moodys. The Christmas event series comedy is an idea whose time has come, but creative excitement is not the same as creative achievement, and watched in near tandem, there's a lot of repetitiveness and sameness between the two early entries in the format. I can assertively say that The Moodys is the fresher Christmas event comedy, actually generating several decent laughs on the back of its very strong cast, but it's by small gradations and not Yuletime leaps."

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