Mon, October 6, 2003

All About the Andersons

(WB, 9:30 Fridays)

This was actually one of the first new comedies that I watched two episodes of. (For the most part, the experiment is about seeing every pilot's show, even though I know I'll hate it. It's not really about finding new shows to watch. However, occasionally the pilot shows enough potential that it's worth seeing what happens once the show gets past that awkward introductory episode.) Anthony Anderson is a pretty funny guy and John Amos (Admiral Fitzwallace from The West Wing) is very entertaining as his dad. I guess what I like about this show is that people act relatively normal, rather than speaking in halted one-liners and then standing around waiting for the next scene, like in some shows. (Coupling, for instance. Or Luis.)

Luis

(Fox, 8:30 Fridays)

Luis Guzmán is one of those character actors that nobody knows but everyone knows. Perfect "Hey, It's That Guy!" material, if you are familiar with FameTracker (or just "Hey, it's that guy!" material, if you're not). He can be quirky (Punch-Drunk Love) or offbeat (Traffic) or serious (Magnolia) or creepy (Oz) but he's never really seemed hilarious to me. So, lord knows why Fox wants him in a sitcom. Rest assured, they won't want it for long. Terribly flat writing, and characters so clichéd that to call them one-dimensional would be an insult to unidimensionality. But the real reason I know this show will be canceled fast? Set in a donut shop, its production designer went with giant plate glass windows which look out on the sidewalk set, which means dozens of expensive extras walking by for the full half hour.

Like Family

(WB, 8:30 Fridays)

Holly Robinson Peete and an actress I almost recognize, but not enough to feel like looking her up, are old pals. When Miss Whoever needs a place to stay, she and her son (in sitcom land two-parent families are about as common as gay men whom nobody can tell are gay) move in with Peete's large family, with all their idiosyncrasies. Oh, and their smokin' hot daughter. Very hot. Almost hot enough to warrant recording a second episode, but instead I keep repeating to myself, I don't need to watch bad sitcoms to see cute girls. I have porn. I think this will go down in history as the year that 80 percent of sitcoms failed to be distinguishable from one another.
(One hot girl goes a long way)

Two and a Half Men

(CBS, 9:30 Mondays)

I'm still confused by this show. Is it actually halfway good, or am I just confused by production values and marketing in a year so painfully devoid of decent new sitcoms? And what's going on with Jon Cryer? Is he really at that point where he can be on a sitcom and it's still just advertised as the Charlie Sheen sitcom? I thought he was in movies! (Okay, the most recent film he's been in that I've heard of was Holy Man.) (In fact, looking at the list, it appears that Pretty in Pink is pretty much it for Jon Cryer. Wow. Nobody told me.) The kid in Two and a Half Men (or 2HM, as I like to call it; no, I don't – I really don't) is all right at being precocious in a fairly non-irritating way. You're going to have to work damn hard to get better sitcom kids than Still Standing has (they're like pint-sized comedy geniuses – that casting director must be into black magic or something). But, this kid is coming pretty close by today's standards. I've seen two episodes of this show so far, and it's not up against that many things I care about, so I could see staying with it until they have an episode where someone is mistaken for gay. (These days, sitcoms average about 0.75 episodes before using that scenario.) Then again, maybe I should just watch half an episode and stop there, so I can say I watched two and a half. Har.

I'm with Her

(ABC, 8:30 Tuesdays)

I didn't hear about I'm with Her until pretty late, but I like the concept a lot. (Movie star dates non-celebrity; hilarity ensues.) It's been described as a "romantic comedy" more than a "sitcom," which is a pretty narrow distinction, but so far it's a pretty entertaining show. My favorite thing? Four actors in the opening credits. I loved this about In Laws last year also. Fewer regular cast members says "we're focusing on the comedy." Also, there are four regular sets on the show: his place and her place (natch); his classroom (he's a schoolteacher); and this little outdoor cafe next door to a newsstand which features heavily in the promotional stills and title sequence and is very clearly designed to look like an adorable stretch of Larchmont Boulevard where I used to hang out a lot because I lived near there. Neat!

Hope and Faith

(ABC, 9:00 Fridays)

Ted McGinley (patron saint of jumptheshark.com) features as the husband in this story about two sisters. (A homemaker and a soap opera star; the soap opera star gets written out of her show, comes home to live with the family, and hilarity does its thang.) Kelly Ripa stars as Faith, and Faith Ford inexplicably stars as Hope. (I'm the last person on the planet to accede to this "it's their names but it's also two adjectives that sort of describe the situation" à la Will and Grace, but if you're going to do it, you should be clear on the fact that it doesn't matter which is Faith and which is Hope. So it's pretty ridiculous not to let Faith be Faith. Maybe that would signal that it's Faith's show the way Luis Guzmán plays Luis or Dave Foley played Dave. But then, why not call it Hope and Something Else? I just imagine a lot of confusion about who sits in the director's chair that says "Faith" on the back.) I love Kelly Ripa's episodes of Ed, so I was pretty determined to like this show, and so far they've made it relatively easy. There was a fantastic food fight in the pilot, and the second episode was pretty good, too. Ted McGinley gets a lot of flak for being a loser and being on Married: With Children, but he was great on Sports Night, so as far as I'm concerned, his slate is clean.

Coupling

(NBC, 9:30 Thursdays)

It's sad that the brightest star of NBC's new sitcom trio is the imported British show Coupling, with which the BBC managed to successfully duplicate the Friends formula in a fresh way by injecting explicit sexual humor and nudity. Of course, NBC can't have the same frankness or as much nudity, so it just becomes a bad copy of Friends. It's really, really bad. Too bad for Rena Sofer, it has not been a good run for her lately. I almost like the opening title sequence (another part of the experiment is evaluating those), but I'm starting to realize that everybody is getting a little too into that effect where the virtual camera keeps pushing in or out of scenes in a way that implies that they're all tied together. It's kind of everywhere these days (Carnivàle and Boomtown use it, as well as many ads). Ever since the razor scooters and the beanie babies, I've been pretty wary of explosive fads.

Married to the Kellys

(ABC, 8:30 Fridays)

Easily the funniest Breckin Meyer sitcom ever (you know what I mean), Married to the Kellys is yet another show about a family merging with another person/group in a somewhat uncomfortable way. (On this page alone, six out of eight shows approximate that theme one way or another. I hope they've set up some sort of light rail system to shuttle the hilarity among them all.) There actually is a little bit of a throwdown going on between this and Miss Match as far as which I'll record again this coming Friday. It wouldn't have been quite so close, but Kellys features Kiele Sanchez , who I super-duper loved as the Carol Vessey clone in That Was Then. (Remember that one? With the sort of time travel element? It was canceled so very fast. Ah, nostalgia... The new shows last year were so much better!)

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