'Shifting Gears' Reunites Tim Allen With Patricia Richardson, Nancy Travis

Shifting Gears is reuniting Tim Allen with two of his former sitcom wives: Home Improvement‘s Patricia Richardson and Last Man Standing‘s Nancy Travis.

Deadline confirmed on Tuesday, August 19, that season 2 will feature appearances from Richardson, 74, Richard Karn and Debbe Dunning after they worked with Allen, 72, on Home Improvement. Travis, 63, is returning to the show after playing Charlotte in season 1, which reunited her with Allen after Last Man Standing.

Richardson, Karn, 69, and Dunning, 59, are set to appear in the October 1 premiere to support Allen’s character Matt in an “unexpected way.” The sitcom legend has often recruited costars from his previous projects to make guest appearances on Shifting Gears after the show premiered on ABC in February.

Allen got his start as a comedian in the ’70s. He made his foray into acting with his role as Tim “The Toolman” Taylor on ABC’s Home Improvement, which scored him a Golden Globe Award. The sitcom, which ran from 1991 to 1999, made Allen a household name.

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The actor continued to find success playing America’s favorite TV dad as Mike Baxter on Last Man Standing from 2011 to 2021. After Last Man Standing ended, the actor waited four years before returning to sitcoms Shifting Gears.

Tim Allen and Nancy Travis. Disney/Raymond Liu

“It was a complicated decision. I was doing Disney+’s Santa Claus series at the time and I said, ‘I really can’t think about this now,'” he exclusively told Us Weekly in January. “Do I want to do linear TV? I was so depressed at how streaming has hurt television. So if I did it, I want to elevate it.”

Allen reflected on his past experience on the small screen, saying, “I’ve done Mike Baxter [on Last Man Standing] and Tim Taylor [on Home Improvement]. So if I do this again, I pitched three things: I want a guy that lost his wife recently, so he’s dealing with grief; I want a guy with the family that doesn’t get along; And then he has a custom car shop.”

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At the time, Allen was thrilled to play a character who was “not like the other guys.”

“He’s more like me. I’m more of an artist. I was a design student and a philosopher and my standup comedy is really about messing with people in a good way,” he noted. “I came from a huge family run by women. So my perspective is very different about men. I don’t think we run things. So I want this to be that guy. He’s not a man’s man in that term, and he wasn’t trying to be anything but what he does.”

Shifting Gears returns to NBC on Wednesday, October 1, at 8 p.m. ET before streaming the next day on Hulu.