Fall TV Preview: ABC — The Comedies
ABC hasn’t really had a significant hit comedy since the early 90s heyday of the family sitcom. They had Home Improvement, Roseanne, and TGIF which seemed to have raised a generation of kids unable to go out on a Friday night. Once Seinfeld and Friends took off, however, the network was left in the dust with its only line of defense being Damon Wayans, Jim Belushi and George Lopez. In recent years the network has tried a myriad shows, none of them sticking (that being said, no one has been able to make comedy successful anywhere on broadcast television).
This isn’t to say all of their attempts at getting back into the comedy game have been failures. It was ABC that gave life to Sports Night for a season-and-a-half before low ratings ultimately sunk it, and in recent years the network has fully embraced the single-camera format despite not being able to figure out how to actually use it to make people laugh. In a way, the best thing ABC had done in the comedy department was flirt with the idea of picking up Arrested Development from FOX before it was ultimately shot in the head. When all was said and done it proved to be nothing more than a casually tossed out suggestion, but at the very least it gave the impression of the wanting to put their mark on a genre (like what they’ve been extremely successful in doing with dramas).
For fall 2007 ABC has released pilots for three new comedies (Cavemen, Carpoolers and Samantha Who?) which I have been lucky enough to view. I’ll preview each after the jump…
Cavemen (8:00pm Tuesdays)
What is it? Cavemen has the disadvantage of being the one new show this fall that everyone has heard about. It all started last winter when various news outlets started reporting the hilarious news that a pilot had been made based on Geico’s popular cavemen commercials. Everyone laughed and said, “Oh, I’ll totally watch that!” and “That’s such a great idea” and similar sentiments of pitch-meeting reverence. And then the thing actually got picked up and teasers began airing on ABC during the NBA finals (which is kind of like airing teasers during an infomercial for Doggy Steps at 3am on a Sunday) and suddenly everyone who was once thrilled at the idea began to shudder at the bleak possibilities of building an expensive, mainstream, network sitcom around characters from a few 15-second insurance ads.
In short the series follows around three modern-day cavemen in suburban Atlanta as they deal with the very visible racism and bigotry toward their people — but y’know, funny.
How’s the pilot? Apparently not good, and that isn’t even me talking. Today Zap2It.com reported the network is going to be recasting one of the rolls in the show and that the pilot sent out for preview will not be the first episode to air this fall. These recent developments perfectly illustrate why most new series should never be judged on the pilot alone — too much can change. Of course, ABC is making the correct decision. At this stage of the game Cavemen is a mess. The writing is sloppy with the “biting satire” the series was hoping for being about as subtle as a rusty razor wire fence. The look is cheap. The Geico commercials appeared to have had better make-up people and did a much better job at getting the background details right (like the white blazer with rolled up sleeves worn by one of them at the rooftop party). Cavemen seems rushed. Most noticeable (at least enough to get some quick changes pushed through) is the cavemen in Cavemen don’t hold a candle to the cavemen in the commercials. Their tone is all off. Every line seems to be played for laughs instead of being played dramatically and then getting the laughs from the intrinsic absurdity of the situations.
Is there a bright spot? Unlike the never-hyperbolic Ain’t It Cool News which published an early scathing review months back I’m an eternal optimist and feel there is still the chance for comedy to be wrung from this concept if things are seriously reworked, but “astoundingly awful”? It wasn’t all that astounding.
How many episodes am I willing to give this show? TWO.
Carpoolers (8:30pm Tuesdays)
What is it? Four disparate dudes ride together to and from work while complaining about the sad realities of suburban marriage and/or divorce. Each guy fits snugly into a familiar type: the average guy with the stay-at-home grown son and wife, the recently divorced player, the newlywed, the black guy.
How’s the pilot? Carpoolers seems to be perfectly in line with what ABC has recently contributed to television comedy: it has a decent concept but without competent execution (Help Me Help You, Big Day, Sons and Daughters, Knights of Prosperity come to mind). There were a handful of decent laughs, but the show, like Cavemen, seems aimless at this stage of the game. It half wants to be a male Sex and the City (a formula that NEVER works) and half wants to be an incredibly broad and absurd comedy. Neither succeeds. Worse though is the rampant sexism that runs through the lives of our leads. Each of their wives, or exes, are some variant on the subservient suburban woman. Frankly, it’s kind of depressing. Also troubling: the guy who we’re suppose to identify with (played by Fred Goss whose Sons and Daughters I was a backer of) has this son who looks EXACTLY like Napoleon Dynamite. This can not be some sort of cosmic coincidence. Somewhere in the production of Carpoolers some suit had to have said, “get me a Napoleon Dynamite type!”
Is there a bright spot? The show works best when its just being wacky. Jerry O’Connell, who plays the divorced one, makes a comment about how his ex wife took everything he owned and then says something along the lines of “What is she going to take next? My phone books?” The camera then pans over to a pile of yellow-pages in an otherwise completely empty room. This made me laugh.
How many episodes am I willing to give this show? TWO.
Samantha Who? (9:30pm Mondays)
What is it? Formerly titled Sam I Am, Samantha Who? is a show that took one of the great sitcom episode clichés and built an entire series around it (brilliantly). Christina Applegate plays Samantha Newly who has just come out of a coma after getting into a car accident. The doctors say she’s fine except for the fact that she has… wait for it… amnesia. Yes, Sam doesn’t remember a damn thing about her adult life and as her friends and family start filling in the blanks she realizes that she used to be a total Seaword.
How’s the pilot? Let’s just put it this way: for a show whose target demographic is about ten year and one chromosome away from yours truly, I absolutely loved it. As a pilot, it does everything right. It quickly introduces the characters, sets up the dramatic tensions, has a few comedic set-pieces and manages to stand alone as a story. Most important, it makes you want to watch a second episode.
What makes Samantha Who? work (despite the fact that this new title is really no better than the first) comes down to a couple of things. First and foremost, Christina Applegate (as we learned in Anchorman) has serious comedic chops and a screen presence like that of Steve Carell on The Office or NPH on How I Met Your Mother. When she’s on screen you want to watch her and since she’s in every scene there’s never that moment of impatience one frequently gets with a typical first episode — where the audience is still feeling things out. Second, the episode did what a situation comedy is suppose to do — it derives comedy from situations. This seems to be something most television producers have a lot of trouble figuring out despite the fact that the name of the genre tells you exactly what you’re suppose to do. Most comedies are gag and joke based. This can work (Arrested Development, 30 Rock), but too often the form just lends itself to lazy writing, where every character speaks almost exclusively in come-backs.
Now I’m going to say something shocking that I’ll later regret: Samantha Who? could be (and should be) the rightful heir to the Sex and the City throne (the good version of Sex and the City before Aiden came back and Miranda had the kid). I say this because Applegate’s character is one of the few relatable female protagonists in television comedy — and happens to be pretty funny (sidebar: I’d actually argue that Tina Fey’s Liz Lemon is probably a more realistic and relatable female character than Samantha except for the fact that being an entertainment professional automatically makes her unrelatable on a mass scale). Perhaps more specifically, Samantha Who? has captured the breezy, playful tone of early Sex in the City. With the right marketing this show could be and should be a major hit — and a big win for ABC (honestly, if it fails they have no one but themselves to blame. It matches so perfectly in tone with the networks existing non-Lost hits).
Is there a dark spot? Of course. It’s just a pilot. One episode. Lord knows how many ways they can screw it up after the first week. In its current form, however, it’s tight, efficient and funny.
How many episodes am I willing to give this show? INDEFINITE.
Preview Samantha Who? at ABC.com
Tags: Fall TV Preview
July 10th, 2007 at 8:53 am
Two things:
1. Is Ugly Betty on ABC? Is that considered a comedy?
2. Are you being facetious when you say that a male Sex and the City never works? Because what is Entourage, if not a male Sex and the City? (I’m not saying it works as in it’s good, but that it works as in people seem to like it.)
July 10th, 2007 at 11:46 am
1) It is, and it isn’t. While there are plenty of funny, hour long shows, “comedy” has always been associated with the 30-minute format (at least according to people in suits). I don’t know why this is.
2) Yes, but Entourage has never been a legitimate hit for the network compared with Sex and the City (and I think most can agree that even fewer watch it now). I guess my point was more of a general feeling that anytime there is success at gender marketing someone always tries to flip it for the other half. I keep thinking of, interestingly enough, “The Other Half” — a one-season day-time talk show that was suppose to be the male View, hosted by Danny Bonaduce, Mario Lopez, Dorian Greggory and Dick Clark. It was a disaster.