‘Speechless’: Freshman Family Comedy Gets a Full-Season Order at ABC

‘Speechless’: Freshman Family Comedy Gets a Full-Season Order at ABC September 30, 2016

SPEECHLESS - ABC's “Speechless" stars Mason Cook as Ray, stars Kyla Kenedy as Dylan, John Ross Bowie as Jimmy, Minnie Driver as Maya, Micah Fowler as JJ and Cedric Yarbrough as Kenneth. (ABC/Kevin Foley)

So far, shows whose pilots showed pro-family values and actual heart are winning.

As previously reported, NBC’s Tuesday-night family/sibling drama “This Is Us” got a full-season order after only one airing, and now ABC’s “Speechless” has followed suit.

“Speechless” airs Wednesdays at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT., and despite being on the network that gave us “The Real O’Neals,” it’s actually good (and funny).

Here’s how ABC describes it:

Maya DiMeo (Minnie Driver) is a mom on a mission who will do anything for her husband Jimmy, her kids Ray, Dylan, and JJ, her eldest son with cerebral palsy. As Maya fights injustices both real and imagined, the family works to make a new home for themselves, and searches for just the right person to give JJ his “voice.”

Speechless stars Minnie Driver as Maya DiMeo, John Ross Bowie as Jimmy DiMeo, Mason Cook as Ray DiMeo, Micah Fowler as JJ DiMeo, Kyla Kennedy as Dylan DiMeo and Cedric Yarbrough as Kenneth.

Said Deadline.com:

New ABC comedy Speechless has been a feel-good story all around. It was not an easy sell — featuring a disabled kid as one of the main characters. The project made a statement by casting a disabled young actor in the role, but the pilot almost didn’t happen until Minnie Driver was tapped as the mom at the last second. The low-key family comedy excelled in the pilot screenings and testings, landing a spot in ABC’s Wednesday comedy block. The series, created by Friends veteran Scott Silveri, launched to great reviews and solid premiere ratings, (2.0, 7.3 million in Live+same day). That was above ABC’s most recent debut in the time slot, The Real O’Neals, 1.8, drawing ABC’s largest audience in the slot in a year. The comedy held well in Week 2, dipping -10% to a 1.8 last night.

To my shock, I really liked the pilot. Here’s a taste of what I had to say at Family Theater Productions’ Faith & Family Media Blog:

Here are a few things I loved about “Speechless” (in no particular order):

  • The dad is awesome. He’s not a typical sitcom dad, which is to say, he’s sharp and funny and loving.
  • Minnie Driver gets to use her own British accent. It’s not explained; it doesn’t need to be.
  • JJ’s siblings have the hard job of holding their own in a family where all the energy bends toward their brother. They’re tough and fun and have strong lives of their own.
  • All things P.C. get hilariously skewered at JJ’s new school, which exemplifies a lot of the worst of the fuzzy-headedness and misguided “sensitivity” infecting much of modern education.
  • JJ gets a lot of the best lines, even if somebody else is voicing them.

As for faith, there isn’t any mentioned — other than when the father comments that the new family home’s abundance of cellphone bars will allow him to “call God” — but neither is it denigrated. Obviously, we’d love it if the family turned out to be Catholic, but I’m not holding my breath. However, it’s not a dealbreaker.

While the rough-edged DeMeos aren’t exactly the Waltons, they’re real and relatable. Other than defending JJ’s human dignity, the show doesn’t appear, so far, to have any agendas, progressive or otherwise.

Click here to watch the first episode, if you missed it. It’s also available on ABC’s WebsiteHulu and Amazon Prime Video.

Image: Courtesy ABC

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