Portside

There has been a lot of discussion about the success of what some have called “dad TV,” shows not watched exclusively by men but targeting them through casting, concept, and execution. It’s not a new phenomenon. CBS used the formula for years, keeping a series like Blue Bloods on the air long after its expiration date. And CBS’s owner, Paramount, has really refined that recipe with certain Showtime shows and all that’s happening in the Taylor Sheridan Universe. Of course, this is not to imply that there aren’t plenty of moms out there in love with everything Paramount+, only that the streamer’s aim seems squarely and successfully at grown men with dad issues of their own (either with their own pops or with their kids). As put in that HuffPost piece, they’re called that “not just because dads watched them but because your dad (or husband) was more likely to be next to you on the couch when you did.”

Branding something dad TV isn’t an insult either. The term simply denotes the kinds of fictional worlds that dads relate to and, often, the kinds of characters they want to be more like. Per NPR: “These are TV shows aimed at appealing to and reflecting the perspectives of middle-aged guys—men over age 30 who are often, as it turns out, dads—with a yearning to see fellows like themselves reflected in some of the programs they watch.” Think of not just a cultural force like Yellowstone, but programs like Reacher, Jack Ryan, and Tulsa King: They all have things in common that put them in the dad TV category, but there may be a new king in this castle and platonic ideal of this genre: MobLand.

MobLand was a massive hit for Paramount+ right out of the gate, breaking the record for the biggest global premiere for the company on premiere day with 2.2 million viewers and joining 1923 and Landman as the largest launches ever for the streamer. How is MobLand shattering high expectations by embracing the tenets of dad TV? With some cleverly ludicrous plotting, over-the-top performances, and loopy accents, for sure, but also by checking off the boxes of any good dad TV show, such as:

Hey, I know that guy 

The simplest way to explain the success of most of Paramount+’s original dramas would be in analyzing the paychecks of their stars. Sure, the TSU brand was a part of the success of 1923 but probably not as much as casting Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren. It matters to get a familiar face or two on the ads, as shows with Billy Bob Thornton (Landman), Jeremy Renner (Mayor Of Kingstown), and Sylvester Stallone (Tulsa King) can attest. And MobLand has an undeniable hook of a cast, one filled with actors associated with what could be called dad movies too. Tom Hardy, Pierce Brosnan, and Helen Mirren are all excellent performers with the right material and they represent franchises spanning from James Bond to The Fast And The Furious. It also helps to fill out an ensemble with character actors that scratch similar itches, such as Paddy Considine and Geoff Bell, who both do excellent work to help ground the first season of MobLand.

He’s just like me, but a criminal

We could all be Jack Reacher with just a few more workouts, right? Most of these shows center complex men in the middle of turf wars, plunging viewers into “what if” dynamics that allow them to question how they would respond to being a landowner in a different era, a power broker in the Midwest, or even a fixer for a U.K. mob family. Tom Hardy’s Harry Da Souza is a classic dad-TV archetype, the guy who has to clean up for a powerful crime syndicate and try his best to keep the peace. He’s the negotiator who keeps chaos at bay, which is a role that many fathers would like to claim they play in their own families. We’re all Harry Da Souza. Viewers like to think that they would respond as instinctively as Harry, making him a surrogate for their wish fulfillment, which is another essential ingredient of dad TV. 

Work/life balance

Blame Tony Soprano, but almost every dad-TV hit since the HBO game-changer has centered a man caught between his work and his family, another element to which so many working fathers and mothers across the globe can relate. In MobLand, Harry misses couples therapy with his wife Jan (Joanne Froggatt) and goes pale when he discovers that his daughter Gina (Teddie Allen) is hooking up with the genuinely awful Lord Joffrey of this show, Eddie Harrigan (Anson Boon). But he’s got work to do to stop London from exploding into violence, underlining the idea that no one can do it all. This is a relatable core of dad TV: people trying to make their boss and partner happy at the same—and generally failing to do so.

A recognizable pedigree 

Taylor Sheridan is still the clear leader of this genre. But getting a director like Guy Ritchie on your ads doesn’t hurt, and neither does having writers who are well-versed in dad TV and movies. Creator Ronan Bennett co-wrote Public Enemies and brought us Peacock’s The Day Of The Jackal. Meanwhile, MobLand‘s other scribe, Jez Butterworth, counts Edge Of Tomorrow, Black Mass, Ford V Ferrari, Spectre, and Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny among his credits. It’s also worth noting that MobLand started life as The Donovans, a prequel to Showtime’s dad-TV staple Ray Donovan. It was reworked into a standalone project, but one can pretty easily see the core of Donovan drama in this show about a fixer for an unpredictable family that also plays with barely repressed childhood trauma. 

It makes us feel smart (but not too smart) 

Audiences will flee to another network if they feel like all of the above items on the checklist are in pursuit of something that thinks they’re stupid. To avoid this, writers like Bennett and Butterworth thread a needle of plotting, making sure it’s just complex enough to keep viewers from scrolling on their phones while not losing them in the metaphors and double crosses. MobLand loves to drop in the occasional chess reference—Brosnan and Mirren’s characters being the protected King and strong Queen, of course—and has echoes of at least a half-dozen Shakespeare plays about power and betrayal. These little touches of intellectual flavor offset the beatings, explosions, and shootings in a way that makes MobLand more than a guilty pleasure.