Site Presented By
Sunday, Oct 12, 2008
Among the new fall TV sitcoms are predictably miserable rip-offs ("Coupling"), dubious star vehicles (Kelly Ripa, anyone?) and cartoon families -- and a few that seem to get the tricky comedy formula just right.
Sep 19, 2003 | For the past five years, television networks have spent hundreds of millions of dollars searching for the next "Friends" or the next "Seinfeld." Even though blockbuster sitcoms usually either grow organically from the stubborn visions of comic geniuses like Larry David or evolve slowly over several seasons through the concerted efforts of talented writers who manage to resist the siren call of mediocrity at every turn, that doesn't stop the networks from chasing down bad shows that look like "Will & Grace" or "Everybody Loves Raymond" from a distance, if you squint your eyes a certain way.
Forget that the stars had to align themselves perfectly for these hit shows to come together, forget that they still might have failed without great direction, exceptional casting and a lot of network support, forget that it took a lot of time and patience for them to hit their strides. Yes, it did take time, even for "Seinfeld." (Remember when Jerry Seinfeld smiled when he was mad, and it wasn't his trademark yet? The rest of the cast were panicked over it.)
The networks have gone on chasing their tails nonetheless, looking for sitcoms that have shallow similarities to hits instead of locating writers and show-runners with passionate visions and original concepts. Granted, it was easier in the '80s, when passionate vision was an eight-ball of high-grade cocaine away. But nothing explains the relentless search for imitators of all stripes who, by their very nature, are destined to produce empty, hollowed-out, inorganic comedies in which the story lines are fantastical and the dialogue is muddled by off-topic wisecracking and zany high jinks that an audience of kindergartners would find absurdly unrealistic.
At least this year it looks like the networks have finally given up on reproducing "Seinfeld." Gone are the shows about nothing populated by neurotic losers that turned out, not surprisingly, to be not merely worse than "Seinfeld" but worse than most of the sitcoms ever made. Instead, the powers that be are determined to rehash one or two popular formulas over and over again. Dysfunctional family dynamics and/or wildly selfish characters living in close quarters with their relatives top the list of favorites this fall, followed closely by big-city sophisticates living among zany small-town folk, with 30-somethings tackling sex and other edgy subjects bringing up the rear. As difficult as it is to predict how good a show will be after just one or two episodes, here's a glimpse at a handful of new living rooms hitting your living room this fall.
"Happy Family" (NBC, Tuesdays at 8:30 p.m.)
NBC's "Happy Family" features a couple, played by Christine Baranski and John Larroquette, whose grown children offer three different flavors of Loser. Eldest son Todd (Jeff Davis) is engaged to one woman while sleeping with another; younger son Tim (Tyler Francavilla) is having an affair with the family's next-door neighbor, who's at least 20 years older than him; and daughter Sara (Melanie Paxson) spends all of her free time at her parents' house, whining loudly about the unavailability of eligible men. Thanks to the talents of Baranski and Larroquette, each of whom has a way of squeezing every ounce of comedy out of each line, the show's energy transcends the dead-end nature of its central hook ("Are our kids really this screwed up and if so, did we screw them up?"), which grows old halfway through the second episode. Davis and Francavilla show a lot of comedic promise so far, but Paxson's character is just barely fleshed out, and what is there ? the whiny, needy, aging single girl -- is far too clichéd and too pathetic to be enjoyable or funny. The story lines here are at least organic -- the comedy arises out of situations, and doesn't depend on smartass remarks to keep it afloat -- which means that "Happy Family" might eventually evolve into a solid show, although what they'll do with these characters once the flashy mishaps of the first few weeks expire is anybody's guess.
"Arrested Development" (Fox, Sundays at 9:30 p.m.)
For a slightly stranger twist on the same insane family theme, there's Fox's "Arrested Development," a single-camera sitcom about an absurdly dysfunctional, manipulative, conniving family. Michael (Jason Bateman) is a widower raising his son alone while enduring the twisted machinations of his flesh and blood, a wealthy group of schemers and freaks whose selfishness and back-stabbing never fails to horrify him. "Arrested Development" has a seriously talented cast (Jeffrey Tambor plays the dad, Jessica Walter the mom, Portia de Rossi the sister and David Cross the brother-in-law) and features unconventional, cartoonish plot twists. In one scene, a clueless Cross mistakenly boards a boat filled with gay activists, and in another, teenaged cousins plan to kiss each other in order to freak out their parents. Talented actors aside, though, it's tough to tell how the writers will maintain the high pitch of madcap action established in the first two episodes while increasing our emotional investment in a gaggle of caricatures.
Get Salon in your mailbox!