Wed, October 1, 2003

This fall, TiVo and I have embarked on our annual experiment for the second time: We record the premiere of every new series, just for fun, before settling into the fall season. It's important to act quickly, because most of the shows – believe me – will be gone pretty soon. Earlier in the year, I was sort of proud of NBC for only premiering six new shows this fall, but now that I have seen the shows I kind of regret they didn't go with just one. I'm willing to wager that by the time May sweeps roll around, the networks will have topped last year's record of four "mid-seasons" and NBC will have premiered at least another ten shows.

Anyway, over the next week or so, I'll try to include a capsule on each new show, with a handful being held until mid-November because of Fox's baseball coverage. We'll begin with some of the "comedies" that have been first to hit the airwaves.

Whoopi

(NBC, 8:00 Tuesdays)

NBC is advertising Whoopi with a quote from a critic (clearly high on junket wine) who says Goldberg has "never been funnier." I think this is actually true, in that it basically makes the point that she's "never been funny." It's like saying David Hyde Pierce has "never been blacker!" The show features a Persian character who is often mistaken for Arab (because white folks be so culturally ignorant!) so Whoopi has an opportunity to be really "edgy" (in the 8 o'clock time slot) by including a lot of terrorist humor. Up to now, sitcoms have pretty much stayed away from terrorist humor, so Whoopi is flooding the market in the hopes that being first will get them some sort of prize.

The Mullets

(UPN, 9:30 Tuesdays)

Naming a show after a bad 1980s hairstyle wouldn't do, so they named the family after the hairstyle and the show after the family. (?) So far (and I emphasize so far), this is among my favorite comedies of the new season. With more than a few premieres still to come, this is admittedly saying rather little. But, sue me, I'm a sucker for J. Peterman. John O'Hurley, who brilliantly gave life to catalog magnate Peterman on Seinfeld, plays Mullet matriarch Loni Anderson's new husband, who's having a difficult time fitting in with the... shall we say, "low class," Mullet clan. He's a game show host and enjoys society parties, whereas they're roofers and prefer Wrestlemania. Romeo & Juliet it's not, but O'Hurley (who once turned me down for a part in my student film) makes it memorable.

Run of the House

(WB, 9:30 Thursdays)

Despite including a Lawrence brother (Which one? Who cares?), this is shockingly not the worst new sitcom I've seen this season. This show understands a basic tenet of sitcommery (particularly on the WB): It's important to have hot chicks. Of the four siblings who have the house to themselves for the winter while Dad is recuperating in Arizona (By the way, is this an example of perpetuating your own mid-season replacement, or what? If the premise of your show is built on the parents being away for a few weeks, what happens a few weeks later? Does Dad just die?), two are attractive girls in tight clothes. Unfortunately, tenet two is also being observed here: Cast Mo Gaffney in a supporting role for no reason.

Rock Me Baby

(UPN, 9:00 Tuesdays)

This show features Dan Cortese as... You know what? Enough said.

All of Us

(UPN, 8:30 Tuesdays)

Ordinarily, UPN shows are not included in the experiment, because UPN does not count as a network. Buffy was good (although digging through the WB's dumpster hardly qualifies as a programming success) and Roswell was okay; but two hours of programming a week plus wrestling doesn't equal a network. Since The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer, they haven't had a sitcom that remotely interested me. But I was already checking out The Mullets, and All of Us was created by Will Smith and his wife (Jada Pinkett Smith of The Matrix Reloaded and also Woo), so I wanted to give it a try. I would have done better to follow my original instincts and skip it. (By the time I had added The Mullets and All of Us to the list, I decided I may as well just give in and watch Eve and Rock Me Baby, too. What a mistake. I must admit it was good to see Theo's friend Cockroach again, though.) Anyway, All of Me has a charming little boy at the center of it (the show is about his parents' divorce and his dad's new fiancée), but ultimately offers little else. Unfortunately, the show is just plain not funny, and tries – as such shows so often do – to compensate by having literally trillions of characters. (Union Square, I'm looking in your direction. Jesse, you're on warning.) Good Morning, Miami did this, too, but dropped the Cuban sexpot and the weather nun once the show got rolling. (I'm not saying Good Morning, Miami is a good show, but it's illustrative of the fact that massive ensembles are superfluous.)

Happy Family

(NBC, 8:30 Tuesdays)

NBC is making a bold move and only premiering six new shows this fall. Three comedies and three dramas. Of the comedies, Happy Family is the middle child: No hype and cherry Thursday-night time slot like Coupling, but no washed-up comedienne and terrible writing like Whoopi either. It pairs a relatively tired premise with two seasoned sitcom stars (John Larroquette of Night Court, and Christine Baranski of Cybill and the immensely funnier and shorter-lived Welcome to New York). Well, dear readers, the tired premise wins out. Baranski and Larroquette are endearing and witty as the family's exhausted parents, but the show focuses too much on the kids. The kids represent implausible situations constructed for hilarity and shock value, with their dopey one-liners and their semi-nudity. The parents represent witty barbs and gifted comic timing, but we barely see them. The fact that Happy Family bowed two weeks early is enough to indicate NBC's lack of faith in it. (After all, this puts it on par with Whoopi.) Unfortunately, even the crown of NBC's sitcom trifecta is lame and laughless, so Happy Family hardly has a chance.

Eve

(UPN, 8:30 Mondays)

Like the other UPN shows, the most shocking thing about Eve is the total lack of production values. Most of the sets consist of two brightly colored walls separated by acres of blank space with maybe a table thrown in. It looks like something out of a "Family Circus" cartoon. I haven't seen Barbershop or anything, so I don't know Eve's work very well, but she manages very well at the key element of the transition from musician/model/comedian to sitcom star, which is to sound like you're not reading the lines off a cue card. It's a low bar, to be sure, but she's just a rapper/clothing designer and this is just UPN. Anyway, Eve's character has a hot friend, a not-so-hot friend, and a swishy gay friend, so even if there had been a laugh or two in the premiere, I probably would've written it off anyway. You've got to do better than that tired old setup. At least on the Geena Davis show, the gay friend wasn't gay or swishy, he was just Harland Williams.

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