Tyler Perry's Young Dylan, also simply referred to as Young Dylan, is an American comedy television series created by Tyler Perry. It first aired on Nickelodeon on February 29, 2020
Plot
"Young" Dylan is an aspiring hip-hop artist. When his mother doesn't come home one day, his grandmother Viola moves him in with his uncle Myles and aunt Yasmine to have parental figures in his life. His style clashes with the styles of Myles' family, who faces the difficulties of each other.
Why People Don't Love It At All
- The show feels like a rip-off of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air with a bit of Cousins for Life thrown in (where relatives with different backgrounds visit each other), and shares almost all of the problems with the latter.
- In fact, they even use the same set for the house as Cousins for Life. Also, Cousins For Life ended in less then a year after this show started, which doesn’t help matters.
- Clichéd and stereotypical characters, and nearly all of them are unlikable:
- Dylan himself is extremely annoying, disrespectful, and is usually screaming for attention whenever most possible but fails all the time. He also overreacts way too much.
- Rebecca and Charlie are mostly added for the intention of adding as much outdated pop-culture into the show and are irrelevant and not needed. Rebecca is also incredibly bossy and mean-spirited most of the time.
- Dylan's uncle has practically no personality despite having to treat Dylan into adapting into things. In fact, he can also be extremely mean-spirited at times.
- Dylan's aunt is a carefree mother who is unable to properly care for the kids, which is a common trope found in Tyler Perry's later works.
- Laughable and poor acting and dialogue.
- Awfully weak writing.
- This show tries extremely hard to stay relevant and be hip to the children audience, using extremely dated references, slang, and memes. A notable example is the "Slang School" scene at the start of "The Enforcer" episode.
- The canned laugh track which plays after almost every line, akin to most modern Nickelodeon sitcoms, even at moments that are more serious than funny.
- Obnoxious, generic rap theme song that constantly says "Young Dylan" in it. It is also too loud and has way to much autotune.
- Non-existent humor, being entirely reliant on outdated references and slang.
- Almost no character introduction, the first scene in the first episode looks as if it is in the middle of the episode right after an advertisement.
- Due to the awful writing, there are lots of plot holes or scenarios with absolutely no logic, such as in the episode "The Enforcer", where the kids are left in a classroom alone with no adult watching them, and no one tries coming in until right after the door gets locked.
- For some odd reason the series had a total of four seasons despite not being well-received by audiences.
- Rebecca was very unlikable in the episode "Sleepover Showdown" as she basically said to Dylan "I wish you can go back to Chicago and give me some space!"
- The show somehow managed to spawn 4 crossovers with That Girl Lay Lay!
- Depending on one's view of these crossovers, 4 crossovers between the same two shows is way too much
Redeeming Qualities
- The third and fourth seasons are slight improvements.
- The concept is great, but executed poorly.
- The acting is slightly improving as the series goes on.
- Although there is barely any music, some of the short background cues stay true to the hip-hop tone.
- The theme song, while it's obnoxious and too loud, sounds decent.
- The theme song in the fourth season is an improvement.
- The Christmas special, "Waiting For Santa", was okay.
- Rebecca and Charlie are both tolerable characters, even though Rebecca is unlikable sometimes.
- Dylan slightly becomes likable as the series went on.
- His friendship with his best friend/cousin, Charlie, is very interesting to watch.
- He also seems to have a great friendship with Sadie and Lay Lay from That Girl Lay Lay.
Reception
The show has been critically panned by critics and watchers. The series received a 2.9/10 on IMDb but it has a 76% by Google users, and is considered to be one of the worst shows Nickelodeon has ever made.