‘So Help Me Todd’ Review: Family Business – The Wall Street Journal

‘So Help Me Todd,” a new series on CBS, is nothing if not a multitasker—it quacks like a comedy, walks like “Law & Order,” swims like a social satire and flies, albeit awkwardly, past the pigeonholes.

What is it? Charming, among other things, partly because it makes such an effort to avoid categories, partly because it has the mirthsome Marcia Gay Harden cast as uptight lawyer Margaret Wright. A prominent Portland attorney, she has a seemingly directionless son Todd (Skylar Astin) who has lost his private investigator’s license over some legal trouble with the state of Oregon. (Unwarranted wiretapping, it seems). And Margaret is not one to tolerate an unambitious, underachieving child—her other son (Matthew Wilkas, later in the series) is an assistant to the governor; her daughter, Allison (the terrific Madeline Wise), is a doctor. Todd has his talents—he’s a naturally gifted sleuth and enormously tech-savvy, something Margaret will realize when he comes to her rescue. Which he will do regularly, while tripping over his own feet. Which is what the series is all about.