Get Smart! Dad (2020)

A bit of a mess

I haven't seen many of these dad-kids shows, but I can appreciate the relationship building, children growth arc that these shows try to portray. This show was done very poorly, because by the end of it I couldn't really tell that the father/kid relationship was improved bar one, and ultimately I don't really think that the kids got much out of it either.

The show supposedly has 'five celebrity families' on it. All mothers are given a trip away from their kids, with the responsibility of looking after the children handed to their respective fathers. The father goes on a journey with their children to find their wives, and along the way they get to spend quality time together and get to know one another better. (Supposedly, the men don't really look after their kids in China, as a majority leave it to the women, so this is meant to tackle the wider societal issue of father's not being present during their kid's childhood, etc etc)

From the get go, this premise wasn't executed well because Arthur Chen (who was 18 at that time) isn't married and so is given a random (non-celebrity) family's kids. I know that in Where Are We Going, Dad? this was also done, but the difference is, this show has a focus on the separation of a husband from his 'wife', more so than a kid from his 'mother', so a lot of the challenges given didn't/couldn't apply to Arthur. This made him seem like such a miscast (I watched this show for him, so I felt bad that he had to be in this position), as well as trivialising most of the challenges because they were easily changed/dismissed to suit Arthur's situation.

A lot of the activities also felt like fillers with no real point to them, which made it really hard to follow where the director was going with the relationship aspect of things. For example, the 'dads' had to bathe the buffalos in one city they visited, at the same time, their 'kids' went to learn traditional dancing. How their relationships could possibly improve when they're doing separate tasks is beyond me. It was as if the scriptwriters were told to add as many activities as they can to occupy the cast, but they'd forgotten why they needed to add them in the first place. Their end of day summation also missed their mark in letting the audience know what they'd learnt about themselves or about their children, so we end each of these none the wiser of what exactly they'd gained from the experience.

I also didn't find that the kids were given a proper platform to learn/grow in the show. Cao Shuai's son was either too young, or just a brat. He was spoilt and by the end of the show was still spoilt because pretty much everyone cooed or caved to his whims. Nathan Lee's daughter was always quirky and smart, and none of the tasks did anything but to highlight that. She was the token 'cute kid' in the show that I'm sure they used for trailers etc. Timmy Hung's two boys had their issues with each other, and by the end of it still had their issues with each other. The twins whom Arthur looked after was always well behaved, so aside from getting to make more friends, I'm not sure what else they got from this experience.

The only real gem in all this was with Athena and Paul's family, who's daughter was such an angel and was (I think) old enough to understand the format of the show to do all the tasks correctly. Athena and Paul's love for each other was also so bloody inspiring, considering we only get to see snippets of it from their cuts on the show. Honestly, without them this show wouldn't even deserve a 1 score. That's how confusing, messy and pointless it was. They ended it with possibility of a season 2 which i think is just too ambitious. Considering this was filmed in 2018, I'd really be shocked if they'll be picking this one up again.

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