By Amanda Valentovic
ASSISTANT FEATURES EDITOR
When Netflix announced that “Full House” would be back on our screens a couple of decades after it ended, the world rejoiced – or at least, fans of the show did. After tracking which cast members would return for the reboot with bated breath, the Tanners are back for some new adventures, but the show is pretty much the same as it was in the ‘90s.
The premise of “Fuller House” should sound familiar. DJ Tanner (Candace Cameron Bure) now has three young sons, and after her husband died she moved back home to take care of her family.
Her sister Stephanie (Jodie Sweetin) and famously annoying best friend Kimmy Gibbler (Andrea Barber) decide to live in the familiar San Francisco house with her to lighten the load.
The kids are now adults, but the original adults also make appearances; dad Danny (Bob Saget), goofy Joey (Dave Coulier), Aunt Becky (Lori Loughlin) and everyone’s favorite Uncle Jesse (John Stamos), are all at least in a few of the 13 episodes.
The first few thoughts I had when I started watching were, “Is having three kids and then losing your spouse genetic?” “Does John Stamos age?” and “In 21 years, no one thought to rearrange the furniture in this house?”
There is no shortage of references to “Full House” and its cast members, especially the absent Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, who shared the role of youngest sister Michelle.
Danny says, “Michelle sends her love, but she’s busy running her fashion empire in New York,” followed by the cast looking right into the camera as if to say “I know, we don’t get why they didn’t want to be here either!”
The show is almost exactly the same as it was the first time, except now there are three boys getting into trouble, DJ is the one giving the life lessons, Stephanie is the cool aunt and Kimmy is the “fun one” to hang out with. Oh, and she also has a daughter who moves into the house with her – because sure, why not?
It’s so cheesy it’s almost hard to watch. The kids, Jackson (Michael Campion), Max (Elias Harger), Tommy (Dashiell and Fox Messitt, even though they’re babies and don’t do anything) and Ramona (Soni Nicole Bringas), are sometimes annoying and there were a few speeches that I actually had secondhand embarrassment about. The storylines are boring and nothing is new or interesting.
There are bright spots though. Middle child Max had lines that made me laugh, like when he rattles off a list of “bad words” he knows and Donald Trump’s name is one of them.
Sweetin is probably the strongest actor out of everyone, reinforcing my opinion that Stephanie was the best character then and still is now. Her delivery of some sarcastic comments (“Not that I’m counting, but that was our fourth hug in a minute.”) made the show better.
“Fuller House” isn’t that great – but did we expect it to be? This show was made for the people who watched “Full House” on live TV in the early ‘90s, not a new audience.
It was trying to hit the nostalgia button and it succeeded. It’s not good, but it probably brought back good memories for a big group of viewers. And you know what? There’s nothing wrong with that.