As a new fall television season begins, I have decided to watch as many of the new shows (and returning old shows) as possible. I will post my brief opinions on all these shows as they premiere, with an emphasis on any series I think may be good/mildly interesting. I will not watch all of these beyond this first episode—I won’t watch most of them, in fact—but writing these will give me incentive to watch as much television as possible. Because why not? In this first post, I touch on the pilots for 2 Broke Girls, Free Agents, Homeland, New Girl, The Playboy Club and Up All Night, along with season premieres of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Two and a Half Men.
2 Broke Girls (CBS)
Here is a pilot that I more or less liked in spite of its incessant attempts to turn me off at every single turn. It did not get off to the most auspicious start—Kat Dennings’ “hipster” rant and the script’s reliance on half-as-clever-as-it-thinks-it-is dialogue was often grating—but by the end of the pilot I was surprised to find out that the characters had actually won me over. This is not the funniest pilot in television history, but there is a load of potential here that most premise-driven pilots usually don’t have. Most sitcoms have to start off with a juicy “hook” before they can evolve into something more interesting, but 2 Broke Girls seems to promise a show that focuses more on watching the characters hang out rather than any real serialized plot arcs. Yes, there’s a gimmick of sorts introduced at the episode’s end, but it doesn’t seem like the type of thing that would overshadow what this show seems like it will do well: create funny situations simply by having the characters be their quippy selves.
2 Broke Girls also acts as proof that multi-camera sitcoms can be done really well, particularly when actually filmed in front of a live studio audience. Where other multi-camera sitcoms can feel flat, this one felt far more vibrant and less forced. In fact, some shows are better off as multi-camera shows (more on that later), and 2 Broke Girls fits that mold well. That said, I am more attracted to the potential of the show than I am this episode in particular, so it’s entirely possible that it will remain trapped in this “good but not quite really good” territory. I hope not, because with the right game plan 2 Broke Girls could become the breakout comedy of the fall. We’re not there just yet, but it’s an attainable goal.
Grade: B
Free Agents (NBC)
As a self-contained 20 minute episode of television, Free Agents is kind of terrible. As a rough blueprint for a sitcom that explores the melancholy lives of Hank Azaria and Kathryn Hahn as they recover from tragedy/divorce, there’s quite a bit to be excited about. There’s a great show to be found in this material, but this pilot is not it in any way, shape or form. It’s just a mess that zings from unfunny joke to unfunny joke without letting any of the comedic moments actually happen, and it tries to be far wackier than it has any right to be. Plus, most of the dialogue that takes place in the workplace is just weird (and could easily be deemed sexual harassment.) There’s real potential here to explore the inner workings of these characters—and I think Azaria does a good job at trying for something better—but the pilot for Free Agents opts instead to go for the cheap sex jokes. I don’t outright hate this pilot (I did chuckle a couple times), and I can see how it could evolve into one of the best comedies on television. It just needs some major tune-ups before it can even come close.
What’s encouraging is that Free Agents has a great many people behind who could make these dreams of greatness come true, so long as NBC gives this show a chance beyond week two. (Not incredibly likely, but what are they going to replace it with?) Co-creator John Embom was one of the men responsible for Party Down—one of the great shows ever made about fundamentally sad people—and Todd Holland has been involved with The Larry Sanders Show, among other things. It’s just disconcerting that all this talent was responsible for this curiously clunky (and horribly-edited) pilot. I still give it a not-terrible grade because there is potential for growth here, but it isn’t going to be easy.
Grade: C+
Homeland (Showtime)
If Homeland plays its cards right, this is going to be one great freaking show. It does not premiere for a little while yet, but a censored version is available for all online, and it is mostly terrific. (Only toward the end does it start to show signs of weakness.) It tells the story of a mentally unstable CIA officer (Claire Danes) who suspects that a returning war hero may actually have been turned by Al-Qaeda, and all she goes through in order to prove this theory. Also, Mandy Patinkin. The show comes from (among others) Howard Gordon—previously responsible for much of 24—and while much of Homeland feels like it comes from a similar place it is actually much slower and seems to be building up to something rather profound. I won’t reveal much about what happens, except that it is truly captivating television from start to finish. Most haunting of all is the performance by Damian Lewis as the aforementioned war hero, who I think would get my Emmy vote based on this episode alone.
The bad: there were some twists and turns toward the end of the pilot that I didn’t completely buy, and there are a couple shots that seem to kill a bit of the ambiguity that was so nicely set up before. The show planted some seeds here that worried me as to the future ever so slightly—worst case scenario: it just becomes a ridiculous action series that regularly pulls the rug out from under you—but if the show sticks with the style set up here it very well may be one of the best shows on television. These are high expectations that Homeland may never live up to, and I worry it may break my heart, but this is a pilot that pulls something rather special off; it sets up a potentially great show while being a thrilling episode in itself.
Grade: B+
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – “Frank’s Pretty Woman” (FX)
Just last week I wrote about how It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia was still a frequently hilarious show despite its age, and the seventh season premiere (“Frank’s Pretty Woman”) saw the show in top form right off the bat. I mean, any Sunny episode that ends with a shot of a dead prostitute in a hallway has got to be a good one, right? From the second we got our first look at the newly-obese Mac (pictured above, because I want you to have nightmares), I knew we were in for something special. By the time Charlie got around to projectile-vomiting blood onto his innocent date, I was sold. Those who chose to criticize last season often said that Sunny was starting to take its foot off the gas in the risk-taking department, so it makes sense that the gang came out of the gate this year guns a-blazing. I don’t have much else to say about this show, except that it is still awesome. Haters gonna hate.
Grade: A-
New Girl (Fox)
One of the most talked-about and polarizing pilots of the fall has been New Girl, the Zooey Deschanel-starring show about a girl who is both adorable and a dork… if only there was anadjective to describe such a person! In typical "me" fashion, I place myself right in the middle of the debate; New Girl is a show with a good lead and promising elements but no real idea what it is yet. You can’t exactly make an entire show about Deschanel’s character and all the wacky things she does, which means the male characters (Jake Johnson, Max Greenfield, the about-to-depart Damon Wayans, Jr.) are going to need some serious development. At its worst, New Girl feels like a multi-camera sitcom that’s been forced to conform to the single-camera format, and some of the jokes seem to be waiting for audience laughter that never comes. Shooting a comedy as a single-camera means you can be more creative in the way you put your show together. The pilot for New Girl does not take advantage of this.
But New Girl is able to pull off the same trick as 2 Broke Girls, albeit to a lesser extent; it somewhat convinces you to care about the characters by episode’s end. The climax of the pilot is formulaic and predictable, but darn it all if it doesn’t hold significant emotional impact. Deschanel is able to apply her talents well to the small screen, even if New Girl is too reliant/obsessed with her quirkiness. It’ll be interesting to see what the writers do here, and I think this is the kind of show that will be easier to figure out as early as week two. I’m not sure how long I’m willing to give this show, but I think it’s earned at least one more viewing. Any more than that? We’ll have to wait and see.
Grade: B-
The Playboy Club (NBC)
Prior to the premiere of NBC’s The Playboy Club, some wondered whether it would be offensive, sexist, or offensively sexist. Now that I’ve seen it, I kind of wish it was. That way it would be so, so much more interesting. Right now The Playboy Club is little more than an absolute bore that evokes the superficial aspects of Mad Men but none of its intelligence or—for lack of a better phrase—good parts. This is a show looks good enough but doesn’t have a single moment that makes the flashiness mean anything. I watched the entire pilot, and I’m not entirely sure what happened or why I should care. (Mostly the latter.) Everything about The Playboy Club is dull; its performances, its characters, its direction, its style, etc. Also, a memo to the tiresome Hugh Hefner narration that bookends the episode: you’re not helping.
I honestly wish I had more to say about The Playboy Club than “holy $#!*, that was boring,” but I don’t. I wish there were abhorrent moments of sexism that caused me to explode with rage, but there weren’t. I wish Eddie Cibrian’s performance wasn’t just a horrible Jon Hamm impersonation, but it isn’t. I wish there was something, anything that I could sink my teeth into here, for better or for worse, but there are none to be found. Plus, nobody watched it, which means we won’t be dealing with it for very long anyway. When all is said and done, The Playboy Club will be remembered as a show that raised a few eyebrows for a week or two but ultimately faded into obscurity. It’s proof that purdy women and ’60s nostalgia alone do not an interesting television series make.
Grade: C-
Two and a Half Men – “Nice to Meet You, Walden Schmidt” (CBS)
As with some of the shows I’ll be discussing in future posts, Two and a Half Men is not something that I’ve really watched in the past. I’ve seen perhaps two episodes at most, and they’ve left absolutely no impact on my mind. However, I—along with approximately 28.74 million of my closest friends—decided that the changing of the guard at Chuck Lorre’s comedy machine was something that was worth checking out. And hol-eee crap was it awful. I mean, really. What an aggressively unfunny, mean-spirited and dirty-minded show this is, be it Charlie Sheen or Ashton Kutcher as the mega-rich lead. Even knowing next-to-nothing about the characters on the show, I knew that a situation like this provided the writers an opportunity to take a thoughtful approach as to how they’d deal with a new actor. Instead, they decided to go with the STD and penis jokes, all while killing off Charlie Sheen and all but defecating on his ashes.
In fact, much of “Nice to Meet You, Walden Schmidt” was not focused on the future so much as it was on degrading Sheen in every way imaginable. He may be a horrible person, but Sheen is also the one who made Two and a Half Men successful in the first place. (It’s not everyone that can crack wise while sitting on a couch!) As far as Lorre and his writers were concerned, he was simply a thorn in their side, and we the audience had to sit patiently (and without laughter) while they spent twenty minutes airing their grievances in a horribly humorless fashion. This is a show that is so predictable in its humor that the second Sheen’s “ashes” arrive at the house, you know they are going to be spilled on the floor. Also, Ashton Kutcher must be constantly be naked, as nothing is as inherently funny as male nudity.
One last thing: this show does not have a very high opinion of women, does it? Each female in this show is either a floozy, a shrew or an object to be lusted after. What these ladies need is a trip to The Playboy Club.
Grade: D
Up All Night (NBC)
Somewhere between conception and the premiere, Up All Night became one of the most crowded shows of the fall. Originally meant to be little more than a comedy about party-loving married couple (Will Arnett and Christina Applegate) trying to raise a baby, it became something else entirely once the success of Bridesmaids caused NBC to push for a larger role for Maya Rudolph. Before, she was an executive at Applegate’s PR firm. Now, she is massively popular talk show host. This logically places her more at the show’s center, but it also throws the entire thing out of whack. There are about eight shows going on in the Up All Night pilot; all of them have the potential to be good, but first the show has to freaking choose one.
Perhaps there is a balance to be found between the baby-raising stuff and the Maya Rudolph stuff—I’m sure there will be an inevitable episode where Rudolph must babysit or something—but in the pilot it just felt unforgivably scatterbrained. My worst fear is that the focus shifts to Rudolph entirely, which would mean Will Arnett (and the baby!) would be left out to dry. It’s not that I don’t like Rudolph (she’s good here, as is everyone), but everything involving her character does not wholly mesh with the rest of the show. Of course, this change came rather late in the game, so I’m willing to accept that the writers just needed some time to find the right direction to go. There’s enough good here to merit a second chance, but if I can’t see what this show is trying to do by week three I may decide to bail.
Grade: C+
Coming up: Modern Family returns, as does NBC’s Thursday night lineup with the addition of Whitney, and much, much more!
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