Shifting Gears has had trouble defining what its brand of comedy is, and it shows in an inconsistent tone throughout the pilot season. Some big swings were big successes, like Shifting Gears episode 4’s drama pivot. Others, like Allen’s Last Man Standing costar’s cameo, were big misses. While the shared Tim Allen universe set up by Shifting Gears is interesting, the sitcom suffers from its recency and fades when compared to Allen’s still-popular former titles like Last Man Standing and Home Improvement. Yet, arguably the worst aspect of Shifting Gears is when it resorts to one uninspired recurring joke.
Matt & Riley Keep Getting Mistaken For A Couple In Shifting Gears
Usually In A Classroom Setting
Standing opposite Tim Allen’s Matt in the Shifting Gears cast of characters is Kat Dennings as Riley, his estranged daughter who moves home with her two children, Carter (Maxwell Simkins) and Georgia (Barrett Margolis). Despite the clear and dramatic age gap between Matt and Riley, each time they attend a school event, a background character implies they’re a married couple. Regardless of whether they’re meeting Carter’s high school teachers or attending Georgia’s middle school career day, the scene inevitably ends up insisting that someone in the room believes Matt is Riley’s husband.
Shifting Gears episode 8 takes the joke one step further by including an age-gap couple that loosely resembles Matt and Riley, with a white-haired older man sitting with his arm around a young brunette. Every time Shifting Gears includes the joke, there’s a small, disgusted reaction by the father-daughter duo before the scene continues, as if nothing has happened. Oddly, no teacher in Shifting Gears ever assumes that Matt is simply a grandparent showing up for his grandchildren’s big academic moments.
Why The Age-Gap Joke Never Lands In Shifting Gears
It’s Awkward And Out Of Place
Unfortunately, the strange recurring gag in Shifting Gears never succeeds as an actual joke. The sitcom falls back on the routine multiple times, but Shifting Gears never does anything with the joke after it’s introduced. Rather than use it for any meaningful commentary or play up the absurdity of the accusation, Shifting Gears just lets the pithless age-gap joke hang in the air without any transformation.
The crux of the issue ties back to what made the initial reviews of Shifting Gears so poor. Without the necessary diegetic movement, the age-gap couple joke ends up reading as nothing other than a subtle assertion that they could somehow be realistically be married to each other. However, in real life, the two characters would most likely be mistaken as family long before a stranger suggested they were married. Still, as many critics pointed out in the early days, Shifting Gears is tethered to Tim Allen and disproportionately props his character up in the narrative.
Shifting Gears Is Better Off Focusing On Matt & Riley’s Relationship As Father & Daughter
It’s The Entire Point Of The Sitcom
Rather than keep inserting the age-gap joke to the detriment of the scene, Shifting Gears should refocus on its goal of being a multi-generational family sitcom. The best moments in the pilot season of Shifting Gears come when the core family confronts the ugly truth about their relationships and work through their issues on-screen. Shifting Gears is even tuned into Gen Z culture, proving that comedy doesn’t have to rely on cheap shock tactics like mistaking Matt and Riley for a couple.
