Netflix Review: Fuller House

This week, instead of reviewing a movie on Netflix, I’m going to review a series that I recently finished, Fuller House.

I, like many others, grew up on Full House. It’s a childhood memory and a show that I still watch when I see it on TV. It’s one of those older shows that has a lot of comedy, but still teaches great morals. So, just like everyone else, I was excited when they announced a sequel series was coming to Netflix. I read every article, watched every trailer and was very much looking forward to the series.

 

Then I watched the first episode. Oh boy, what a hot mess that first episode is. The first episode is full of jabs at the Olsen twins, jabs at each other’s careers, and full of moments that the writers included just because it’s “nostalgic.” Every time a character entered the scene the audience would hoot and holler and it would really throw off the flow of the scene. John Stamos just stands there and smiles as the crowd cheers and it’s just not very good.

Now, I love the song “Forever” in the original series. Every time Jesse sings it to Becky, it’s very sweet. When they get him to sing it in the first episode of Fuller House though, it just feels forced and out of place. It was only included for the nostalgia. It feels completely shoehorned in. Not to mention it sounded like a recording from the early 90’s.

But that’s just the first episode. As you continue on with the show, it does pick up a lot and there is quite a bit to like. Canadace Cameron Bure and Andrea Barber still have great chemistry together as DJ and Kimmy. Their friendship always feels real and they work off each other extremely well.

Andrea Barber is still very good as Kimmy. She knows this character so well and she never once falters. Soni Bringas is very good as her daughter and she has great chemistry with Barber and their mother/daughter relationship feels very real. Juan Pablo Di Pace, who plays Barber’s husband, is most definitely the weak link in the family. His character got annoying fast and I grew tired of him by the end of the season. Canadace Cameron Bure still looks great and does a wonderful job as the lead actress of the show. It does feel like it takes a few episodes for her to get back into the flow of things, but she is great. She plays the mom role very well and I really like her in the series. Jodie Sweetin is good as Stephanie. Just like Bure, it does feel like it takes her a few episodes to get into it again, but she has a great scene in the middle of the episode where she has to show a lot of emotion and she pulls it off very well.

The show does a good job, besides the first episode, of handling the nostalgia of the original series and still adding something new. The first episode handled it very badly. They tried to hard to appeal to the Full House fans by doing a side by side reincarnation of the scene in the first episode where they all sing to the baby. It’s really badly done. However, there are some great nostalgia moments. Maybe the best one is when Steve is reminding DJ of a great moment they had as teenagers and it shows a flashback of it. It’s a great moment.

Overall it’s a pretty fun time. If you liked the original series, I think you’ll like this one. It does take a few episodes to get use to the new characters and the first episode is really bad, but if you can get past those, I think you’ll really enjoy it.

Oh, and the opening credits are really well done.