Tim Allen is Home Improvement, but he’s hoping to entice viewers with his upcoming ABC sitcom. Shifting Gears has been on the hush-hush for the past couple of months. The “obvious” concrete information we’ve gleaned is that Allen recently finished shooting the pilot.
“Matt [Allen] is the stubborn, widowed owner of a classic car restoration shop. When Matt’s estranged daughter Riley [Kat Dennings] and her teenage kids move into his house, the real restoration begins.”
Though I’d read the logline before, I didn’t realize Dennings would be cast as Allen’s daughter! Per Variety, we also now know that Froy Gutierrez will be in the show as Nick, “Matt’s son and Riley’s younger brother. He’s a game coder but put his life on hold to come home and help his father at the shop.”
Another familiar face joining the cast is Daryl Mitchell, who starred in Galaxy Quest alongside Allen! (We’d be here all day if I went over Mitchell’s Hollywood credentials.) Mitchell will be playing the role of Ed, “a former Marine. He’s a mechanic at the shop and ‘work husband’ of Frankie.”
The actress playing Frankie has yet to be announced.
Tim Allen’s ‘Shifting Gears’ Has Finished Its Pilot Episode
I guess we may as well see how people feel about the pilot episode wrapping up.
“More Home Improvement. Toolman is getting bored with retirement, and on Jill’s suggestion he creates a YouTube channel which goes viral because he hurts himself in every video he posts,” one X (formerly Twitter) user suggests. Truthfully, the last thing I’d want is for a show to be a husk of an older show. Let Allen move on from Home Improvement, y’all.