Remote Patrol: The Goldbergs, Mom strengthen their family ties

Digital Spy presents Remote Patrol - the weekly column from New York-based TV critic Bruce Fretts, taking a look at what's hot right now in US television.

Bruce is a veteran of both Entertainment Weekly and TV Guide Magazine, where he penned the wildly popular 'Cheers & Jeers' column for ten years.

The Goldbergs and Mom Strengthen Their Family Ties

This season's new comedies have been a mostly unfunny lot, with NBC's A to Z and Bad Judge and ABC's Selfie and Manhattan Love Story finding no love from critics or viewers and already getting cancelled. So thank goodness two of last season's most promising new sitcoms, The Goldbergs and Mom, have only gotten better in their sophomore years.

The Goldbergs started out as an amusing yet seemingly shallow '80s spoof, but it's grown into the 21st century equivalent of The Wonder Years. It's heartfelt and smart in its depiction of a pre-teen, Adam (Sean Giambrone, who's so perfectly shrimpy one hopes he's a long way from puberty), as he comes of age in a more innocent era.

Each member of the family (based on creator Adam Goldberg's real-life relatives, who are seen in actual vintage home video footage at the end of each episode) has deepened - and thus become funnier - in season two.

Wendi McLendon-Covey dominates as Adam's 'smother' Bev, but she's matched by Jeff Garlin (in full Curb Your Enthusiasm yelling mode) as frequently pants-less dad Murray, Troy Gentile as the dim yet achingly vulnerable big brother Barry and Hayley Orrantia as status-conscious but ultimately loving sister Erica. Oh, and let us not forget the great George Segal as randy and surprisingly wise grandpa Pops.

The Goldbergs' tone is perfectly set by narrator Patton Oswalt, whose wry line readings recall The Wonder Years' Daniel Stern in the best possible way. And the soundtrack always delivers an exquisitely-chosen '80s rock classic to wrap each episode in a nostalgic package.

Mom has come even further in its second go-round. What started out as a fairly generic dysfunctional-family sitcom about a recovering addict (Anna Faris) living with a bad-influence mom (Allison Janney) and a pregnant teenage daughter (Sadie Calvano) has evolved into a dark, sharp exercise in serio-comic realism more reminiscent of Chuck Lorre's earlier, better work like Roseanne and Grace Under Fire than his more recent yukfests like Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory.

The show hasn't shied away from taking on tough topics - not just alcoholism and drug abuse but unwanted pregnancy (Calvano's Violet put her baby up for adoption, and heartbreakingly went through with it) and homelessness (the family has spent this season bouncing from place to place after Faris's Christy gambled away the rent money).

The real revelation here, of course, is Janney, who deservedly won a Best Supporting Actress Emmy for Mom's first season (as well as a Best Guest Actress Emmy for her shattering work as a closeted gay doctor's wife on Showtime's Masters of Sex). We always knew she could do drama, but she's seamlessly segued into the four-camera, laugh-track format with impeccably dry comic timing and genuine pathos.

The Goldbergs and Mom might not be TV's most cutting-edge comedies, but they're among the medium's most reliably well-written and acted laughers (alongside Brooklyn Nine-Nine and the perennially underrated The Middle). Modern Family has won the Best Comedy Emmy for the past five years running, but these two new modern-family farces merit serious consideration.