Funny And Zooey
I caught the debut of the Zooey Deschanel one-camera sitcom New Girl. It follows Glee on Fox, a good slot for it. (Turns out it did better than Glee. While I like the occasional number on Glee I'm not sure if I can take the rest of the show.) Not unlike 2 Broke Girls, the inciting incident has Zooey's character Jess catch her boyfriend in flagrante delicto, but while on Girls he's kicked out, on Girl Jess is the one who has to leave.
As for the plot, it couldn't have been more basic. The guys take Jess out to a bar where, after some advice, she manages to get picked up. (Would she really need advice? Especially from these guys, who are losers, or pretty close?) The guy turns out to be a jerk and her roommates leave a hip party to comfort her, showing they're real friends. I didn't mind a little earnestness in the characters, but I prefer good jokes.
So far, pretty much all New Girl has going for it is Deschanel herself, who admittedly is very appealing. I suppose I'll give it another chance, but the show can't rely alone on her being adorable--it needs to step it up.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:03 AM
2 Comments:
Here's my take on these two.
New girl I found better than 2 Broke Girls and Up All Night, but as you said, primarily because Zooey is entertaining. I'll give it another shot too. I think there is some hope that the three guys will be funny eventually. I always wonder where they get all these people for sitcoms who don't seem to have come from comedy backgrounds. Is it assumed that anyone who can act can do comedy? I look at successful sitcoms of the past, and they are largely populated by stand up comics, or at least comic actors.
I'm thinking about "Everyone Loves Raymond", with Ray Romano, Brad Garrett and Peter Boyle. Or Seinfeld, with Julia Dreyfus, Michael Richards, and Jerry Stiller. Or back to the beginning - the Dick Van Dyke Show, almost character of which was played by a comedian (besides the lovely Mary Tyler Moore).
As for Glee, I like the show, but it was a week opener. 1st, it took like 25 minutes before they did a song. Second, even less happened than usual in these shows. i don't need much plot in Glee, and I enjoy how the characters flip motivations from week to week, but this episode had no motivation for anything.
It wasn't unusual to have comic actors in sitcoms in the past, but actual stand-ups is a bit more modern. I guess it started with Bill Cosby (whose hit show admittedly started over a quarter century ago) and then the floodgates opened with Roseanne Barr, Tim Allen, Jerry Seinfeld, Drew Carey and so on. But for most shows you want to make sure they're good actors who can be funny rather than funny people who might be able to act.
Think of the hit sitcoms of the 70s--Mary Tyler Moore, All In The Family, M*A*S*H, Happy Days and so on. Not that many stand up comedians in the crowd, and a lot of people who knew how to handle drama as well as comedy.
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