More than a decade after the swift cancellation of the underrated show “Enlisted,” Fox has taken another bite at the apple of a broadcast workplace sitcom set within the United States military. As with its predecessor, the midseason premiere “Going Dutch” counters the global scope of its central employer with the intimate one of immediate family. What it adds to this shared premise is a long litany of jokes about bikes, tulips, prostitution, bluntness as a cultural value and cheese.
Created by Joel Church-Cooper (“Brockmire”), “Going Dutch” stars Denis Leary — also an executive producer, alongside his son Jack — as Colonel Patrick Quinn, a career officer who finds himself exiled to Stroopsdorf, “the least important army base in the world.” The Netherlands outpost’s bowling alley, laundry facilities and world-class fromagerie are under the interim command of Patrick’s estranged daughter Maggie (Taylor Misiak), who defends her colleagues’ lavender-picking, silent-disco-having ways from her father’s harsh judgement.
As a gruffly macho rageaholic, Leary is playing only slightly less to type than his recent turn on “No Good Deed” as Ray Romano’s blackmailing brother. “Going Dutch” mines most of its laughs from Patrick as a fish out of water, forced out of combat to manning parades by a trash-talking rant caught on body cam during a drill. Patrick’s boss, General Davidson (Joe Morton), takes palpable glee in dispatching the colonel from a more strategically important post in Germany to a surprise family reunion with Maggie, who he hasn’t talked to in two years. That’s by Maggie’s count, since Patrick hasn’t even noticed his own kid going no-contact.
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In the three episodes provided to critics, “Going Dutch” easily amuses, especially in Patrick’s interactions with underlings like Sergeant Dana Conway (Laci Mosley, of the podcast “Scam Goddess”) and Corporal Elias Papadakis (Hal Cumpston). Whether denigrating Papadakis as “a fat hippie on a bike” or getting apoplectic over Conway spending a small fraction of the Pentagon’s budget on sourcing fine wines for the commissary, there’s a fruitful culture clash in a jingoistic American getting mired in Europe’s lackadaisical pace.
Like a wheel of aging gouda, other elements of “Going Dutch” may need more time to mature. On the conceptual front, the show shares an underlying tension with “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and other light comedies set within flawed, scrutinized and often violent institutions. There’s no sign “Going Dutch” plans to follow the “Abbott Elementary” playbook and make political discourse a driver of its plot, nor is it obliged to. But without such context, certain jokes stick out like sore thumbs. “I was so committed to completing the mission that I didn’t consider the consequences,” Maggie admits. “Which is just like every other U.S. Army mission since 2001!” Patrick replies. I’m not sure what “Going Dutch” wants the audience to make of that allusion to a quarter-century of foreign policy — but I’m certainly curious to hear the perspective of his deputy Abraham Shah (Danny Pudi), who largely enforces Patrick’s command while keeping any opinions to himself.
Patrick and Maggie’s relationship is more central to the series’ aims, though Maggie is often defined more in relation to her father than as a protagonist in her own right. She’s a defender of Stroopsdorf’s relaxed atmosphere, but also a West Point graduate who dates CIA agents and dreams of higher office. Synthesizing that empathy and ambition into a cohesive character may take a few more episodes, even as “Going Dutch” rushes some Patrick-related subplots like a crush on a local madam (Catherine Tate). But there’s no reason to believe the show won’t get there eventually, and the early episodes generate enough goodwill to buy the time needed to figure itself out. “Going Dutch” takes the scenic route through the tulip fields on the way to a more focused, emotionally grounded show.
“Going Dutch” premieres on Fox on Jan. 2 at 9:30pm ET, with remaining episodes airing weekly on Thursdays.