what better time for the premiere of a show that takes up the subject of fat-shaming? the saga of donald trump and his comments, past and present, about excess poundage on a former miss universe winner still echoes through the land. the abc series is set in westport, conn.<u+2014>a place, the lead character, katie otto, declares, where <u+201c>everybody has big houses and tiny butts.<u+201d> also where <u+201c>every idiot has a boat and a labradoodle.<u+201d> katie ( katy mixon ), a wife and mother of three, has just received the disturbing news that her neighbor, known as fat pam, whose name sums matters up nicely, intends to move to vermont, where people are less slender<u+2014>which would leave katie in the position of being the second-fattest woman in town. this is far from katie<u+2019>s only concern, but it<u+2019>s a preoccupation so important to her that she launches an elaborate campaign to prevent any slender woman from moving in<u+2014>which says a lot, none of it encouraging, about the caliber of the script-writing we can expect from the show. american housewife begins tuesday, 8:30 p.m., abc katie and husband, greg ( diedrich bader ), have moved to westport, whose affluence and social types katie so clearly finds repellent, only because it appears to offer the best schooling opportunities for the younger of their two daughters, anna-kat ( julia butters ), who is driven by odd compulsions and fears, a committed germaphobe of grade-school age. there<u+2019>s also an older son, oliver ( daniel dimaggio ), highly intelligent but afflicted with a problem his mother considers really frightful, far worse than any obsessive-compulsive disorder<u+2014>he wants to be rich, which katie considers a serious character deficiency. worse, he<u+2019>s immersed in the stock market. all told, katie is a commanding presence, a social commentator with a flair for insult, a housewife with a bottomless capacity for complaint. ms. mixon performs commendably. what the show needs now are writers of whom the same could be said.
<u+2018>american housewife<u+2019> review: bucking the stepford trend - wsj
dorothy rabinowitz