3 out of 5

Created by: Joshua Sternin & Jennifer Ventimilia

The Dan Savage creator tag might have you thinking Real O’Neals is going to be a font of risque taboo-challenges, but on the whole, it settles into a fairly straightforward cheery sitcom disposition, albeit one with above-average writing and a uniformly entertaining cast.

Via voiceover from Kenny (Noah Galvin), one of the O’Neals boys, we get what we can think is the setup: Kenny is gay, and puts up with his horny girlfriend and over-bearingly judgmental Catholic mother (Martha Plimpton), existing in a world he’s sure won’t be accepting of the truth.  And because this is comedy and not drama, those ignorances are played up, and Kenny speaks to them with a note of whimsy.  Thankfully, things aren’t that painfully basic and outdated: by episode’s end, Kenny has come out, at the same time that his parents admit to a divorce, his brother to admitting (essentially) that jock life stresses him out, and his sister stating that she’s maybe not an outright god believer.  The frankness of it feels fairly bold for an ABC show, and the calmness with which everyone receives Kenny’s sexuality is refreshingly modern, avoiding most of the “gay fish out of water” tropes this general setup has provided various movies and shows over the years.  It also provides for a fun reversal, as Kenny keeps expecting barriers where they don’t seem to exist.  After the writers cycle through a series of jokes between mother and son coming to terms with the shake up, ‘Real O’Neals’ becomes an even more satisfying comedy as a collective of tales of all its leads, playing up the discomfort most of all at simply being ourselves and spreading it out to what happens when an entire family tries – bumblingly – individuality on for size at the same time.

Still, despite the appreciably open take on the topic, the show is incredibly safe, and succeeds primarily because everyone’s comedic timing is great, and the show doesn’t aim for any great statements on its subject matter.  That could be insulting, as it might trivialize how difficult coming out probably is for 99% of the world, but I think it’s also a good thing that it ends up becoming just another aspect of the series, and that we enjoy spending time with every family member and their storylines as well.  There are smarter comedies, but there are also plenty of much less funny ones than The Real O’Neals.