The Bernie Mac Show - Season 1
The Bernie Mac Showoffers some of the funniest parenting on  television--and some of the most honest. Stand-up comedian Bernie and his  wife, Wanda (Kellita Smith), have taken in his sister's three  kids--preschooler Bryana (impish Dee Dee Davis), grade-schooler Jordan  (gangly Jeremy Suarez), and teenager Vanessa (deadpan Camille  Winbush)--while his sister goes through rehab. Since Wanda is an executive  vice-president, Bernie becomes a stay-at-home dad, putting him and the  kids in a state of near-constant comic warfare.The Bernie Mac Showuses  parenting issues as a launching pad for stories that start simple  but escalate out of control. In one episode, Bernie realizes that Bryana  and Jordan rank Vanessa's authority higher than his; after failing to  assert himself as top dog of the house, he tries to manipulate the  situation and put Vanessa in charge of discipline. When Bryana overhears  Bernie using the "N-word" and repeats it at school, Bernie finds his   whole personality under the scrutiny of the family's social worker.  Regardless of the topic, Bernie finds a way to address problems without  knuckling under to sitcom clichés.The Bernie Mac Showfinds its  humor not simply in these situations, but in all the details that erupt  from them; every character is given multiple dimensions, allowing them to  be constantly surprising. The show's skilled writing staff knows how to  cram an amazing amount of story into each episode. And Bernie himself has  crafted a persona that is both absurd in his bravado and  self-mythologizing and deeply real in his emotional complexity,  flipflopping from childish grandiosity to mature judgment. It's an  impressive feat, all the more so because every episode is ingeniously  funny.--Bret Fetzer