I Finally Pinpointed What’s Wrong with Shifting Gears — Tim Allen’s Comedy Style

The 2024-2025 TV season featured the renaissance of a Network TV special: multicam sitcoms.

These shows had been slowly phased out, but each of the three major networks had its own multicam sitcom, complete with a studio audience.

For CBS, it was  Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage, while ABC had Shifting Gears and NBC had Happy’s Place.

All three shows were successful and will return for a second season, proving the resilience of a tried and tested formula.

I started watching all of them when they began airing, and soon enough, dropped most. Not because they were bad shows, but because I wasn’t a fan of the main characters, especially in Shifting Gears and Happy’s Place.

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At their core, they are about family conflict.

In Shifting Gears, Matty’s daughter, Riley, returns home with her children after life doesn’t go as she planned. Her return invites conflict between her and Matty, rehashing their past dynamics.

In Happy’s Place, the death of tavern owner, Happy, reveals that he had fathered a secret child, and this realization hits his eldest daughter Bonnie like a truck when she meets her half sister during a will-reading.

These premises promise a busload of conflicts as the two sides try to reconcile their current lives. I checked out of Happy’s Place after one episode because I didn’t like what I thought would be the show’s formula.

I would have done it early with Shifting Gears, but I once made a promise to the small screen that wherever Kat Dennings goes, I will follow. But even she was not enough to keep me interested.

Like many TV Fanatics, I am a completionist. I recently completed both shows because it really frustrates me when I give up on something without even trying.

Happy’s Place vs Shifting Gears

Since I had more episodes of Happy’s Place to watch, I started with it. To my surprise, I was hooked after several episodes because there was something about it that was uncharacteristically funny, upbeat, and hopeful.

I had judged it all wrong. I had assumed that, given its premise and the main character’s age, I’d have to endure constant complaining and bickering from Bonnie as she tries to connect with her sister from another mother and generation.

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Instead, Happy’s Place surprised me. It is what TV needs. While there are conflicts, they are resolved in a sweet, heartwarming manner that connects with the viewer.

Every character is a lot, that’s for sure, but one can feel the deliberate attempt to bridge their differences without making fun of them.

And now shifting gears to Shifting Gears, I finally realized why the show was hard to sit through.

Anti-Woke Comedy on Broadcast Won’t Work. It Never Has.

Anti-woke comedy has tried to mainstream itself for a long time now.

It is usually led by people on the older side who wish the world would revert to the way it was when they were young because, in their eyes, everything has changed too much.

Anti-woke comedy is characterized by a lot of mockery of things people don’t understand, punching down, and cheap shots. That’s when it hit me: Shifting Gears is anti-woke comedy, whatever that means to someone.

Matty is the embodiment of the perfect modern anti-woke warrior. In the ten or so episodes that aired in Season 1, he rails against everything that older people would consider “woke” – Respecting your feelings, respecting other people’s feelings, respecting non-humans, and more.

His family has suddenly become a three-generation household. Instead of being the glue that holds them together, they have to keep trying to appease him so that they don’t offend Matty’s convictions.

Watching Matty feels like what I’d imagine being in the audience during a Bill Maher show feels like. 

And it’s okay to have characters like Matty on TV. It’s proven that as people grow older, they develop some Mattysim in them. Stuff like screaming at the news, mocking what they don’t understand, and a short leash for entertaining nonsense.

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These are not necessarily bad things. But one thing is for sure: they are not fun. Everyone wants to hang out with the fun relative, not the one stuck in a dream of nostalgia.

A character like Matty, despite his in-your-face conservative politics, makes it almost impossible to enjoy a comedy show where he’s right front and center.

And the thing is, they didn’t have to make him such a hard ass. Matty and Bonnie are almost the same age. However, I’d hang out with Bonnie and feel fulfilled despite the age difference.

There is a stark difference between the two shows, and given the choice, most people would choose the warm, fuzzy show instead of the other one. Viewers have more options now than ever.

It’s hard to enjoy Shifting Gear’s humor brand, and even harder to listen to its main character.

Will they change him? I highly doubt it. The challenge is how long they’ll keep this up until viewers realize this guy is no fun.

If anything, they should rework the show and focus on Georgia.

Watch Shifting Gears Online

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