Aired: 1997 (CBS)
DAD: Edward Parker (Ed Begley, Jr.) / Widower
DAD’S JOB: Doctor
KIDS: Alex (Jonathan Lipnicki), Maggie (Michelle Trachtenberg), and Trip (Will Estes) Parker
WHERE’S MOM?: Dead (?)
STAND-IN “MOM”: Meego? (Bronson Pinchot)
First pass on this show? HIDEOUS. It’s like Mork and Mindy, only not funny. CBS puts it this way:
Bronson Pinchot, best known as Balki in “Perfect Strangers” and Serge from “Beverly Hills Cop,” returns as Meego, a wise-beyond-his-9,000-years alien whose spaceship crashes onto Earth. He’s discovered by three children, Alex (Jonathan Lipnicki), Maggie (Michelle Trachtenberg), and Trip (Will Estes) Parker, who could use a little TLC, and pass him off to their single dad, Dr. Edward Parker (Ed Begley, Jr.), as the perfect caretaker.
Originally intending to stay until his spaceship can be repaired, Meego has a change of heart and decides to move in after he becomes emotionally attached to the kids, particularly young Alex — and realizes that he has an out-of-this-world knack for child-rearing on planet Earth.
Oh, did they mention that Jonathan Lipnicki was just coming off a big-screen national exposure as the cute little kid in Jerry Maguire and that Michelle Trachtenberg just got more kid-pull from her exposure on the Harriet the Spy movie? A public relations bonanza!
Will Estes dropped back into another Single TV Dad family after being in one on Kirk. Typecasting?
Update – May 30, 1998: This show is officially DEAD. Another object lesson that Plot Does Matter. Goodbye and good riddance, Meego and the Parker family!