Review: Out With Dad 3.01 "Starting Out"

If you didn’t know, season 3 of the award-winning webseries Out With Dad has begun!  This is my favorite webseries, and I can’t say this enough: you should watch it, and share it with your friends! Anyway, creator/writer/director/all around good guy Jason Leaver has decided to release the first section of season 3 of Out With Dad by posting a new episode every day!  This creates difficulty for me, since I enjoy writing my ruminations concerning each episode after I watch them, and there’s no way I’m reviewing an episode a day!  I have to sleep sometime, after all!  So I guess I’ll just start here with episode 3.01 and see how far I get before I decide to call it a day.  Or a week.  Whatever.

Episode 3.01, “Starting Out” begins by establishing some information about what’s happening with our main characters, Rose and Dad (Nathan).  This marks the debut of Jonathan Robbins as Nathan.  I’d say the transition is as seamless as possible.  It’s never totally seamless to replace an actor in a leading role, but Jonathan and Kate Conway (Rose) show an easy chemistry and I think I’m going to like Jonathan. The opening scene with Rose and Nathan also shows that they are almost moved into their new home, and Nathan’s relationship with Angela has progressed except that he still hasn’t mentioned to Rose that he’s dating.  Rose totally knows.  But Nathan hasn’t told her yet.  Also, Rose appears to be totally smitten with Claire, whether she realizes it or not.

Vanessa’s plight in this episode is more dramatic and more interesting to me.  We get to see her Dad more, and hear his views of how her life is going.  There have been comments from viewers that her dad (Steven) needs to be more assertive.  He seems to have done so here…but not in a positive way.  He mostly repeats the views his wife expressed last season, that Vanessa needs to stay away from her crazy gay friend and remember that she has a BOYfriend!  The fact that their daughter is miserable and lonely doesn’t matter because they’re saving her SOUL!  HER SOUL!!!

Also, Nathan designed Rose a blossom shirt.  This is to show support for her, and we’ll see more of this shirt later this season. He also mentions wanting to be supportive but not always knowing what to do.  At school, Claire and Vanessa have a brief encounter, and Vanessa overhears Claire and Rose plan a date.  Or is it a date?  It’s dinner. Overall, this episode is very good, though it’s mostly set-up.  I know we’ll get to the really interesting stuff as the season progresses!  The Out With Dad cast and crew have done a wonderful job.  I totally seriously believe this series is as good as anything I’ve seen from major networks this year!  And I guess that’s about all I have time to talk about today.  I’ll say more about this season in a week or two.

One last thing, we get the return of Rose’s astral self. For a perfect comment! I love it!