Netflix’s Fuller House is like a porn parody without the porn

With the premiere of Netflix’s Fuller House comes a classic conundrum: How do you mercilessly criticize a product while encouraging the instinct that led to its creation? Because despite the plaintive catchphrase of one Uncle Jesse Katsopolis (John Stamos), which reappears along with every other vaguely recognizable zinger from the original series, Fuller House doesn’t deserve mercy. The show isn’t just bad, it borders on the obscene, as much an affront to those bemused by a reboot of the sitcom that anchored ABC’s once-mighty T.G.I.F. comedy block as those receptive to it. But to attack Fuller House on conceptual grounds is wrongheaded, considering the same blindfolded nostalgia led the deep-pocketed streaming service to order a Wet Hot American Summer series, reconstitute Mr. Show as With Bob And David, and green-light four new Gilmore Girls movies. Netflix’s reboot magnanimity has been such a blessing, it’s heartbreaking to see Fuller House emerge as the perverse result.
There’s no better argument against Fuller House than its own pilot, which acts as the indulgent, diehards-only series finale never granted to Full House when it was abruptly canceled in its eighth season. It even begins with a chunk of Full House’s opening credit sequence, a reminder of how sturdy the original show was for its time. Even now, the basic premise of a widowed father enlisting his single best friends to move in and help raise his three daughters is a flawless sitcom logline, and the cheery theme song is a welcome throwback to a simpler, if less ambitious period in scripted comedy. The pilot then jumps forward a full 29 years into the future (which is faulty math by any measure) to show that everything and nothing has changed at the extended Tanner family’s tony San Francisco Victorian. Morning show anchor Danny Tanner (Bob Saget) is still a germophobic milquetoast, comedian Joey Gladstone (Dave Coulier) is still a stunted man-child, and Uncle Jesse is still a soft-rock heartthrob whose signature song is a cloying cover of The Beach Boys’ “Forever.” Though they’ve apparently been in a holding pattern for nearly 30 years, their professional passions are leading all three to move away from San Francisco and the house that made them a family.