PHIL OF THE FUTURE-Meet the Curtis









 

PHIL OF THE FUTURE-s1e1?-Meet the Curtis

 

Oddly, this came out the same year as the far superior DRAKE AND JOSH but this is from Disney Channel. A likable lead, Ricky Ullman, carries the entire show which is, quite honestly, lame by today’s standards. In a vein of shows like BEWITCHED and I DREAM OF JEANNIE, Phil has a sort of supernatural secret: he and his family come from 2120. They became stranded in the 21st century due their time machine breaking down. Which should be a show with lots of laughs…and maybe future eps have that (one, where Phil seems to revert to his childhood with voice to match seems memorable) but this one isn’t even mildly humorous, though the cast is trying.

 

Synop: The Diffy family find out that a caveman sneaked into their time machine, and Lloyd tries to get rid of him, but Phil wants to keep "Curtis".

 

The actor playing Curtis is also playing the school principal. Keely Teslow (born March 1990) is Phil's best friend and later girlfriend. She is the only person who knows Phil and his family are from the future. Keely is an energetic and bubbly girl who aspires to be a news reporter. She starts to harbor romantic feelings for Phil during season 2.

 

None of the premise is started here and there’s some confusion as Disney Plus labels this the first episode of season one while Wikipedia labels it the third ep of season one. Either way the cast tries real hard to make this work but it doesn’t. There’s some mild fun to be had when Curtis tries to learn football and tosses it back to Phil and knocks him down “Dad” isn’t funny but annoying as he doesn’t want to keep Curtis as a pet; Mom is and always was funny but she doesn’t have much to do other than finding a prowler in the house which she doesn’t. And Amy Bruckner as the bratty little sister tries to escape the lame party of a class mate Debbie Berwick (in the same year, this actress, Kay Panabaker, will be in the superior series SUMMERLAND with Jesse McCartney, Lori Laughlin, and Zac Efron). She battles grandma in an effort to get free of the lame slumer party.

 

NOTHING is set up here. We find out about the premise from the excellent and catchy theme song, the best thing about this. 


Curtis, predictably, helps find Lloyd, “dad”, who gets lost in the woods looking for an outhouse.

 

Most of this is more lame the party Pim is stuck at. There’s little to no laughs, nothing real between the characters, other than Phil being “good with cavemen” and him learning not to treat him like a dog.

 

Based on this episode, not sure I want to watch ANY more but Ricky Ullman is quite  talented so maybe?

 


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