Matt Stewart is a widower trying to raise his two daughters, Sarah and Emily, with the help of his live-in father, Sam, a former baseball player for the Boston Red Sox. Further complicating matters, Matt works as an English teacher at Sarah's high school. Matt struggles to keep his nose out of his daughter's social life while attempting to find his own.
Carole Horst of Variety reviewed the first episode of Raising Dad and wrote: "a family trying to cope with the death of the mother... isn’t funny, but it is touching at times", and added that the cast "is fine, and "Dad" shows some promise. It probably will keep Reba's audience tuned in to end a nice family night of TV."[3]