The new TV shows are being unveiled. This used to mean something, but now that we can watch them where and when we want, premiere week is not so urgent.
I watch enough TV already, so it'll have to take something special to join the lineup. Still, I suppose I'll check out this and that when I'm home and something's on. For instance, I just watched two sitcom pilots scheduled for NBC Wednesdays (against ABC comedies)--
Up All Night and
Free Agents.
Up All Night is a single-camera show starring Will Arnett (who doesn't seem to be in hit TV shows) and Christina Applegate as a couple dealing with the effect a baby has on their life. Sounds like a tiresome cliche and so far, it is. Applegate is the one with the job. Like so many women employed in popular entertaiment, she works in TV. In particular, on the show
Ava, starring Ava (Maya Rudolph), a somewhat harebrained host of an afternoon talk show. I found the TV stuff cliched too, though more fun than the baby stuff. The actors do a decent enough job, though I felt Applegate and Rudolph had more rapport than Applegate and Arnett.
Free Agents is an American version of a British show I've never seen. Hank Azaria and Kathryn Hahn (whom I've always felt has an unfortunate resemblance to Al Lewis) are co-workers at a public relations firm who hook up. He's divorced and her fiance recently died. So I guess the show will be about their rocky relationshp along with all the nutty and generally abrasive people they work with. This show is also full of cliches and has even weaker writing than
Up All Night, but I liked it better. Maybe it had a better attitude, or characters who seemed more likely to go in interesting directions.
I didn't hate either show, but I wouldn't go out of my way to watch them again. Still, it's unfair to judge a TV show by one episode, even a pilot. Truth is, when it comes to sitcoms, most take half a season to find themselves. Maybe I should give them another chance when they've moved beyond the obvious and have developed characters.
4 Comments:
They both built their stories around sex jokes, which shows a lack of imagination.
I had the same reaction. I've liked Arnett since Arrested development, and I thought he was funny in 30 Rock. I seem to remember that he's still available for guest appearances in 30 Rock. But Up All Night had no laughs. I'll probably give it another episode or two, but Maya Rudolph is by far the best thing on the show.
Free Agents at least had me laughing a few times. I have a soft spot for Anthony Head from Buffy watching - I hope he gets some good screen time. In the picture above, Kathryn Hahn looks like Sean Penn in a wig. One problem I had is Hank Azaria is looking very old for the part he's playing, but good writing will get me past that.
I thought that about Azaria, too. I don't know when it happened, but he seems to have aged a lot lately.
I didn't watch Buffy, but I thought Head was the most memorable of the many supporting characters on Free Agents.
Its the identification game. Exhausted (good looking)people raising a baby will resonate with everyone who remembers doing that (if the writing is passable). Everybody Loves Raymond succeeded because TV watchers fight with their families in the suburbs. Not every show needs to be about previous urban 20 somethings with their meaningless problems (I'm not bitter)
Kathryn Hahn looks like Ana Gasteyer as Larry David's girlfriend in Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Somethings going right for Kathryn- everyone's talking about what she looks like (Is the word "striking"? a "handsome woman?")
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