Junior Hernandez (played by Joseph Haro) and Molly Yoder (Ella Rae Peck), high-schoolers whose plans are complicated by a pregnancy, in "Welcome to the Family"
If there's a sleeper hit among the season’s new comedies, it could be “Welcome to the Family,” a culture-clash sitcom that plays nicely with stereotypes.
Mike O’Malley, best known recently from “Glee,” and Mary McCormack, from “In Plain Sight,” play Dan and Caroline Yoder, who have pushed their spacey daughter, Molly (Ella Rae Peck), through high school and can’t wait to ship her off to college.
Then, as a kind of reverse graduation gift, she tells them she’s pregnant.
The baby daddy is Junior Hernandez (Joseph Haro), valedictorian son of Miguel (Ricardo Chavira) and Lisette (Justina Machado).
Neither set of parents takes the news well, and “Welcome” quickly moves on to the enforced interaction of the two families.
That doesn’t go so well, either, since the air is thick with preconceptions about cultural heritages and customs.
Happily, the show lets the easy gags serve as backdrop and focuses on characters whose quirks and blind spots never render them stupid or unlikable.
No one’s singing “Kumbaya,” but each does start discovering he or she doesn’t have a monopoly on admirable qualities.
Chavira and O’Malley, both coming from dramadies, slide into their roles easily. They start off openly hostile, which as it turns out may be no more ominous than McCormack and Machado starting with a veneer of politeness.
The wild cards, well used, are the kids, who also aren’t exactly as we first saw them.
While “Family” has predictable moments, it has the potential to provide some pleasant surprises.
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