“Carpoolers” — Dougie’s First Day
If you’re going to make a series about a bunch of guys in a carpool, you probably won’t have a better comedic moment than a scene where each of the carpool members start singing along to the song on the radio, and if that song happens to be Air Supply’s “I’m All Out Of Love” — all the better. Unfortunately for Carpoolers, ABC post-Cavemen new comedy, this moment comes before the opening credits of the pilot episode. More after the jump…
I didn’t hate Carpoolers when I first saw it a few months back, and I more or less felt the same this time around. That being said, I didn’t particularly like it all that much either. In a way, it might be the one series this season I feel the most indifferent about. It’s the type of show that has some decent laughs in it, but also has moments so completely awful you feel like someone micturated on your rug.
The series was created by Kids In The Hall alum Bruce McCullach and its best moments hearken back to that shows more surreal side, like the rival carpool of “fancy carpoolers” eating sushi or the home scenes with Aubrey (Jerry Minor) running around like a crazy person taking care of his kids and his wife of whom we only see the feet.
But then there’s elements like Gracen’s (Fred Goss from Sons and Daughters) son Marmaduke who looks and acts exactly like Napoleon Dynamite. I mean, exactly. And man, I hated Napoleon Dynamite. It’s such a hack of a character it’s kind of hard to fathom how it made it all the way to the final version of the show.
The series also has a tendency (at least after one episode) to embrace some sort of old Mad Men-esque male superiority. In this first episode the A-story involved Gracen freaking out that his wife may make more money than he does, only to realize in the end that she didn’t. Then everything was OK. It was an odd way to introduce a character. Across the other households the women aren’t looked at much differently. Laird (Jerry O’Connell) is recently divorced and lives in a house completely void of furniture because his ex took everything he owned (aside from an ab-roller and a stack of telephone books — my favorite gag of the week). Aubrey’s wife is portrayed as lazy and completely uninterested, and Dougie, the new guy, is married to a picture-perfect hausfrau. What does all of this mean? Is Carpoolers ultimately a show about masculinity, and if so, what’s the message?
If it were funnier none of this would matter, but it isn’t and thus those flaws on the edges find their way creeping into the center of the frame with breakneck speed.
October 5th, 2007 at 12:49 am
I just don’t understand how the premise can be carried for a whole season and beyond. How did they pitch this series in the long run? I mean, how many carpool jokes can a writer have up his proverbial sleeve? Plus I thought that the four main characters were pretty weak.
And yeah, the Napoleon hack was really off-putting (a job best left to Jon Heder, who I really enjoyed).
October 5th, 2007 at 8:30 am
I thought the show was kind of iffy. Im going to give it another episode but i dont see it lasting.