By Keith Staskiewicz

The Goodes are the blue-state analogues of the Hills, Mike Judge’s venerable Texas-twangers who will soon be packing up the propane after a staggering 13 seasons. A bespectacled father voiced by Judge, an overweight son, a midriff-baring daughter, a cantankerous old coot of a father, and a dog named after a political figure; Judge’s creations for his new series The Goode Family, which premieres Wednesday May 27th (9:00-9:30 p.m., ET) on ABC, are the cultural and political negative images of his previous ones. Rather than chugging beer on the front lawn, the Goodes are more likely to be found swigging soy milk in their solar-powered home and then painstakingly recycling the containers.

Here’s a few clips from the pilot:

The pater familias here is Gerald Goode, a poncho-wearing member of the liberal academe. His wife is a local activist with whom he has two children, one adopted and one biological. The dog is an unwilling vegan and they shower outside in a home-made rainwater catchment system. They drive a hybrid with the word “HYBRID” written in big letters on the side. In short, they embody every well-intentioned but ill-thought-out element of the liberal Left, with a capital L.

But where the stereotypical redneckishness of King of the Hill seemed secondary to crafting the Hills as believable characters, this new family is groaning under the weight of their own premise. The Goodes’ efforts to reduce emissions and buy organic don’t really feel, well, organic and at this point they seem more like a collection of recognizable parts than a cohesive whole. One of the main cast members is quite literally a one-off joke, whose punchline is mined minutes into the pilot, and if there is one thing the short, unhappy life of Sit Down, Shut Up taught us, it’s that good comedy falls flat when put into the mouths of walking, talking clichés.

Thankfully, much of this is offset by some very strong writing and the fact that, even in the pilot, the jokes and the characters are clearly trying to hoist themselves up and out of the constrictions of a one-sentence studio pitch. Judge is smart enough to know that if he wants anything near the shelf-life of his previous series, the characters will have to outlive the premise. Eco-suburbia and political correctness are fertile grounds for comedy, but ones that have already been harvested endlessly. Acute observations about environmental one-upmanship or the fact that hybrid drivers are rarely as quiet as their car’s whispering engines are welcome, but they inevitably feel a bit reused and recycled. Even references to cultural timestamps like Obama and Octomom can’t shake the sneaking feeling of been-there done-that.

Here’s a few clips of Mike Judge commenting on the series:

That being said, I actually have high hopes for this show. There is plenty of potential here, once they cycle through the requisite Al Gore jokes, for it to become another genuinely funny and endearing part of Judge’s multifaceted examination of this country. Throughout his career, he has been one of the few voices continuously turning an introspective eye on American culture, whether it is corporate, conservative, television-obsessed, or even future. To crib from the title of the Beavis and Butt-Head movie, Mike Judge does America. Hopefully, at a time when The Simpsons have become lost in their own caricatures and Family Guy has turned pseudo-Dadaist, The Goode Family will shed this early awkwardness and step up to take the place of King of the Hill as one of the few places on network television where we can see characters, animated or otherwise, that bear some semblance to actual human beings. A real American family, both good and bad.