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Tim Allen’s New Sitcom Gets LAST MAN STANDING Reunion
By Movieguide® Contributor
Tim Allen’s new sitcom, SHIFTING GEARS, will feature a LAST MAN STANDING reunion with Nancy Travis.
Travis played Vanessa Baxter on LAST MAN STANDING, the wife of Allen’s Mike Baxter.
US Weekly reported that on SHIFTING GEARS, she’ll play Charlotte, “a spirited widow” who connects with Allen’s character Matt.
“The Nancy Travis story is really, really clever,” Allen said. The two haven’t shared the screen since LAST MAN STANDING ended in 2021.
SHIFTING GEARS kicked off earlier this year, setting record viewership numbers for ABC. It follows Matt “the stubborn, widowed owner of a classic car restoration shop,” according to the official logline. “When estranged daughter Riley…and her kids move into his house, the real restoration begins.”
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He explained that from the beginning, SHIFTING GEARS was going to look a little different than his previous sitcom roles.
“From the very beginning, [the creative team has said] that we’ve never seen Tim Allen in a sitcom with a romantic interest. And I said, ‘Well, I’ve just lost my wife so I don’t see it.’ So I love where we are,” Allen told US Weekly in a separate interview. “I said, ‘If it happens over time and happens organically with two people that do not get along then it is OK. I just am really cautious about this. I just want it to happen where it’s organic and proper.”
But there’s sure to be some chemistry between Matt and Charlotte as Allen and Travis formed a close friendship on LAST MAN STANDING.
“Nancy Travis once told me [something] after I called her during LAST MAN STANDING,” Allen recalled. “I said, ‘Have you talked to the girls [who play our daughters] over the summer?’ Then there’s this long pause, and she goes, ‘Tim, these aren’t our daughters, and I’m not actually your wife.’”
Allen continued: “She was so wonderful about it because sometimes when they were having trouble on the show, I’d go, ‘How do you think they feel?’ And she would respond, ‘Tim, they’re actors. We just read [what is on the page but] she’s not really that sad.’”
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