Story
The story revolved around two rather different realities, in Boston, Massachusetts. In one corner, there was the rather stereotyped character played by Lenny Clarke, a Boston Irish bar owner close to retirement who watches with dismay as his son falls for a girl with a rather unorthodox family history: she is the adoptive, and somewhat spoiled, daughter of an upper-middle class gay couple. The situation forces the character to come to terms with his homophobia although this aspect of Clarke's character was substantially toned down, since the atmosphere of a sitcom would not be suitable to explore such a conflict appropriately (the producers did not intend to recreate another All in the Family Archie Bunker character). In addition, the audience is introduced to the also stereotypical Irish American wife (Harriet Sansom Harris), who helps in the pub but is generally a traditional middle-aged housewife (but oddly has little problems accepting her soon-to-be daughter-in-law's parents), as well as the couple's tough-but-kind daughter (Paige Moss), who waitresses in the family's bar.
On the other side, there were Simon (Christopher Sieber) and Philip (John Benjamin Hickey), a same-sex couple who takes pride in how well they were able to raise their adoptive daughter. Here, the comedy came from the couple's difficulties in adjusting to their daughter's boyfriend's family, especially his father (Lenny Clarke), and most notably from Philip's notion that his daughter was dating someone "beneath her", both socially and culturally.
The first (and as it turned out, the only) season followed Maggie Lawson's and Reid Scott's characters romance as it evolved from a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship into engagement and, eventually, marriage. During this process, the two families strived to come to terms with the inevitability of being "joined" by their children's union, which would force both sides to revisit their preconceptions and prejudices.
Read more about this topic: It's All Relative
Famous quotes containing the word story:
“The liar at any rate recognizes that recreation, not instruction, is the aim of conversation, and is a far more civilised being than the blockhead who loudly expresses his disbelief in a story which is told simply for the amusement of the company.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book—a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice. And it was not a book to be read once and thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Mr. Wiggam, I want you to change the policy of The Clarion. I want you to write a story I should have written myself long ago. I want you to tell the people of San Francisco that no city can exist without law and order. Write a story about that flag, write about what verifies and brings a promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There are some people in this town who don’t seem to know that. Let The Clarion tell them.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)