'Only Murders in the Building' Is the Best (and One of the Only) Dad Comedies on TV Right Now

What if they were Steve Marvin and Marvin Short

Disney/Eric McCandless; Hannah Roman

Dad Show comedies are pretty rare these days. There are funny Dad Shows, but usually they’re dramas with a sense of humor, not sitcoms. Dad Show comedies used to be common, but comedies told from a middle-class family man’s point of view are out of fashion. I’m not saying this is a good or bad thing, just that it’s an observable phenomenon — though I do think if someone at Netflix figured out how to make a Ted Lasso-meets-Home Improvement family sitcom told from the perspective of a dad who owns a blue-collar small business, the market would reward them for it. 

The handful of streaming era Dad Sitcoms that exist have had to evolve from their traditional form, and two stand out for their success. There’s Ted Lasso, which embraced positivity and emotional vulnerability as a vision of contemporary masculinity. And there’s Only Murders in the Building, which just returned for its fourth season on Hulu, and is doing something really unique and interesting. 

Steve Martin and Martin Short are enduring Dad Comedy icons that have bucked the trend of growing cranky and bitter as the world changes that has doomed many of their peers to irrelevance. They have instead tried to find how they can fit into the present moment while staying true to their established comedic identities. And they succeeded, by partnering with a much younger woman to create a vision of intergenerational friendship that’s sweet and enjoyable and sort of aspirational. I can imagine a 75-year-old man watching Only Murders in the Building and saying “I would like to be friends with a 30-year-old woman in a non-creepy way like these guys are.” They all respect each other,  and when she makes fun of them for being old, it comes from a place of affection, not contempt. That type of roasting has always been Martin and Short’s dynamic with each other. They adapted their sensibility to meet the moment. 

A stealthy but crucial element of OMITB’s success is that Selena Gomez’s Mabel Mora is not really “like a daughter” to Martin’s Charles-Haden Savage and Short’s Oliver Putnam. She’s the third amigo. They’re equals. And this dynamic goes both ways. It keeps Mabel from being infantilized, obviously, but it also keeps Charles and Oliver from having to be father figures, which can be limiting. If they always had that responsibility, it would make the characters too unlikable when they behave selfishly. They are father figures at times, to their own son in Oliver’s case and ex-girlfriend’s daughter in Charles’ case, but it’s just one part of who they are. They’re also friends and neighbors and workers and lovers who are sometimes selfish and sometimes generous and sometimes fearful and sometimes brave. And that’s what really makes Only Murders in the Building a Dad Show. It lets its old guys be the complex, multifaceted heroes of their own story. 

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• I reviewed Netflix’s Greek mythology fantasy comedy KAOS for TV Guide. Jeff Goldblum is terrible in it, because Jeff Goldblum is an insincere, one-dimensional performer. Not Dad Shows-approved.

• I’m still plugging away with weekly Bad Monkey reviews on Episodic Medium. It’s such a fun show, and I’m having a blast writing about it. Subscribe to read my review of the flashback-heavy fourth episode.