Jack Whitehall: Fatherhood with My Father says little about parenting

After five years of road trips with puckish British comedian Jack Whitehall and his haughty father Michael, the pair seemingly stopped in 2021.

The fifth season of Jack White: Travels with My Father was subtitled “The Final Journey” which had a conclusiveness but they clearly weren’t done.

The Whitehalls are back with another series, Jack Whitehall: Fatherhood with My Father, and it’s a familiar bickering formula of Jack being immature and goading and Michael taking mock offence and being a little bit clueless about the 21st century.

The reason for their onscreen reunion is Jack’s entry into parenthood, having welcomed baby girl Elsie with partner Roxy Horner a year ago. So, in theory, this is a series about Jack learning to be a father through the wisdom of his dad.

In reality, it’s Travels with My Father season six.

The first episode takes place before Elsie’s birth while the next three are seemingly shot afterwards. Jack says he’s trying to grasp his changed circumstances by exploring topics that now concern him, including technology, survival and longevity.

The Whitehalls meet an AI robot in Cornwall, ride in a driverless car in Los Angeles, enter the metaverse to take in a dance class as virtual avatars, go to health day spa in Italy and meet centenarians in Sardinia.

In the survival chapter, they travel to Utah to take lessons from so-called survivalists but are probably closer to doomsday militia. Jack is a kid in a candy shop with glee as he spies the lethal automatic weapons he’ll learn to shoot.

It’s a stomach-churning episode as Fatherhood with My Father fails to interrogate the culture and the danger of America’s obsession with assault weapons.

That his instructor has a hunting rifle propped on the floor of his home with his two small children around is insane, but, sure, let’s just take his word that his kids know the difference between toy guns and real guns.

That same episode also features a segment in which the Whitehalls visit a car dealership that sells civilians military-style tanks for half a million dollars. They have one-inch bulletproof glass, electrified door handles and shoots pepper spray from the mirrors.

As the salesperson is talking through the benefits of such a vehicle, what’s not said is that the fact it even exists is to play into the fear and paranoia instilled in extremist Americans who truly believe they are under attack from the government or immigrants or Antifa. It’s irresponsible of the show to not contextualise it, offering it up instead as a curio.

The show is not a Louis Theroux-style documentary but there’s nothing funny about equating maximum force with safety.

Jack’s worldview may have changed with parenthood, maybe he sees dangers where he previously did not, but the show does little to really make it about his transition.

Save for a few extra home videos of Jack and Michael, and a few platitudes about being a dad, it feels like an excuse rather than a raison d’etre to get the gang back together.

Jack Whitehall: Fatherhood with My Father is streaming on Netflix