REVIEW: ‘Wonder Years’ doesn’t focus as much as it should

Just when you get accustomed to the idea of Bill Williams (Dule Hill) and his son Dean (Elisha Williams) spending time in New York, the series is on to another concept.

A whole season could be spent uncovering what a young boy and his dad turn up in the Big Apple. As is, Bill gets to write for Marvin Gaye; Dean discovers the offbeat neighbor next door (Tituss Burgess).

For those who didn’t get a New York experience in adolescence, it’s a way to introduce the innocence that colored the original series. There, Kevin Arnold was constantly peeling the fruit of new situations. Here, it seems like someone is just trying to find something that will stick.

In that New York episode, both father and son are fish out of water. They see how others react and, in Dean’s case, how someone expresses gender identity.

Quickly, though, the rebooted series returns home to Alabama and it becomes a place where Bill’s mom (Patti LaBelle) flexes her clout as the director of the church choir. When she loses her star alto, she calls upon her daughter-in-law Lillian (Saycon Sengbloh) to step in. This creates a stir among the faithful and a battle of wills. The concept is familiar — other sitcoms have been down this road — but it has the benefit of a guest appearance that sings. LaBelle does a great job wielding the hammer; Sengbloh is even better as the singer who could hold her own with Marvin Gaye and whomever the producers toss in her husband’s direction.

Daughter Kim (Laura Kariuki), meanwhile, gets a comic foil of her own when wild Aunt Jackie (Phoebe Robinson) shows up and inspires trouble.

One by one, the episodes have those “very special” guest stars that suggest this isn’t a “Wonder Years” reboot but an ‘80s sitcom looking for traction.

Pared back to the family — Hill, Sengbloh, Williams and Kariuki — the new “Wonder Years” could spark the same kind of warm feeling the original did. Perspective is missing, particularly when Don Cheadle’s narration doesn’t inform the story as much as Daniel Stern’s did.

Pushing Dean toward the back some weeks undercuts the focus and settles for familiar situations with unfamiliar characters. Williams, who’s a great actor, should be used more, offering up reactions we haven’t seen. Going places where he’s not only makes viewers long for his take on a world we’re not in.

“The Wonder Years” airs Wednesdays on ABC.