"Parenthood" is like a retelling of "Sex and the City"; we have four protagonists, and they oppose one another in reliable ways. Two are feckless; these two are the Samantha and Carrie forces, Dax Shepard and Lauren Graham. The other two are fairly conservative; these two would be Miranda and Charlotte, Peter Krause and Erika Christensen. The feckless siblings are not always in committed partnerships; the conservative siblings are very much married, and married, and married. Generally, in an hour, two siblings get "heavy lifting" storylines, and the other two get "comic relief" plots. Sometimes, the comic relief is an indirect comment on the heavy lifting storyline. For example, as Erika Christensen struggles with the weighty news that her child will need to "move backwards" in elementary school, Dax Shepard has a lighter script about learning to endorse his son's love of ballet. Emily Nussbaum called the series one of two "f...