Take Three: Significant Mother

Significant Mother: Season 1, Episode 3 “Who’s Your Daddy” (C+)

This installment was disappointingly formulaic, and featured the kind of plotline I would have expected to be saved for much further down the road. I’m glad to see, however, that this show still has a fun rhythm, with all of its characters getting far too excited and jumpy about every little thing that happens. It seems that in the television world there can never be any possible reason for throwing up other than pregnancy, and therefore that was the logical assumption here when Lydia was having trouble holding down her lunch. There’s no denying that Nate is horrendously awful at keeping secrets, wearing multiple pairs of sunglasses and a headband to keep his eyebrows from raising themselves a la Jack Nicholson, a trait apparently shared by his mother. Jimmy and Harrison dueling to impress Lydia and build themselves up as the proper father was entertaining, and their rivalry has not gotten old. Harrison’s snide nature and Jimmy’s goodness mesh well together, especially since Lydia usually yells at both of them for reacting inappropriately. I’m glad that there wasn’t actually a real pregnancy, since that’s not something this show needs, just a well-meaning early proposal and an unexpected comment from Lydia about how she wouldn’t mind having another kid. On the guest star front, I was pleased to see Robert Picardo, who played the Emergency Medical Hologram on “Star Trek: Voyager” and has been mostly absent since, as another doctor here, one who dropped dead before he could announce whether Lydia was truly pregnant.