Cryer’s back in his lane, playing a divorced dad

By now, Jon Cryer should be expert on divorce, with all its potential for comedy or drama.
Like many people, he’s a child of divorce and an adult who divorced. Unlike most, he has a mother who wrote a musical partly about divorce. Also, he spent a dozen years playing a divorced dad on CBS.
Now he’s back and in full comedy mode. “Extended Family” (shown here) debuts at about 8 p.m. Saturday (Dec. 23), after football, on NBC, becoming the first show in TV’s staggered, post-strike comeback..That opener reruns at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, with new episodes starting a week later.
This is a tale of a modern-day, amicable splits. Jim (Cryer, right) and Julia (Abigail Spencer) alternate weeks at their home, allowing their daughter and son to stay put.
It’s all very civilized … except, of course, when it isn’t. Julia has moved on; Jim hasn’t. She has a new guy (Donald Faison); Jim clings to an elaborate contract about the living arrangements.
Yes, that sounds familiar. The contract is like the roommate one that Sheldon created in “Big Bang Theory.” In the situation-comedy tradition, the dad is sort of flailing and ineffective; the mom is calm. The first episode even includes a familiar touch – trying to replace a dead pet, witout the child noticing.
It’s standard turf, partly salvaged by some big-laugh moments … and by the likability of the stars.
Faison (“Scrubs”) and Spencer (“Timeless,” “Suits,” “Grey’s Anatomy”) have been skilled actors. Indeed, Spencer was painfully perfect in a demanding role in the cable series “Rectify.”
Both are the children of divorce and have had a divorce. Still, Cryer is the real expert on that.
He was about 6 when his parents divorced, 13 when his mother drew praise for co-writing and starring in “I’m Getting My Act Together and Taking It on the Road.” The story told of a divorced singer-songwriter, forging a new life with new, topical material, eventually splitting with her manager.
Jon Cryer soon found his path. As a teen, he followed Matthew Broderick on Broadway (“Torch Song Trilogy”) and in a movie (“No Small Affair”) that had planned to cast Broderick, but was delayed.
He became a young movie star and then a dependable TV star. In “Two and a Half Men,” he was flailing, floundering, frustrated – all the things that TV dads often do. He did them well; now he cranks them up a notch in “Extended Family.”
Real life, of course, can go beyond comedy chaos: According to Wikipedia profiles Cryer has now been married to Lisa Joyner (a TV reporter and host) for 16 years. His dad remarried 50 years ago.
(David Cryer was on the road for at least 19 years, in a supporting role in “Phantom of the Opera.” He did it to put his six kids through college, he once explained; the demands were eased a bit when Jon skipped college and went straight to Broadway.)
Faison has now been married for 11 years; Mike O’Malley, who created the show, has been married for 23. Sometimes, life gets unchanged and uncomplicated. But hey, where’s the comedy in that?