Much like Tim Allen dove into his personal experience with grief in Shifting Gears, Kat Dennings is able to lean into her life as well. While Riley has a lot on her plate in the sitcom that we hope she'll figure out, she seems to navigate the whole mom thing pretty well.

When Matt (Allen) exhibits odd behavior, his daughter Riley (Dennings) immediately connects the dots and must remind him of "the evils of peer pressure" in PEOPLE's exclusive look at the March 12 epis

During an interview on the Not Gonna Lie podcast, Dennings revealed that both of them cried for real during filming. On the podcast, Dennings talked about the experience of playing a mother for the first time in her career,

Kat Dennings recalled an emotional moment between her and ‘Shifting Gears’ costar Tim Allen while gearing up for a scene

I watch a lot of television. I could argue with a straight face that it’s for my job, but really, deep down, I kinda just love watching TV. I’d probably be consuming almost as much if I worked some other random job.

Shifting Gears is Tim Allen's third starring sitcom, but Allen's past titles have haunted his new role enough to warrant a joke in episode 9's ending.