Wednesday, October 23, 2013

I watched some of those new sitcoms..

As far as I remember, last year I didn't pay that much attention to comedy shows that premiered on tv. I mostly read reviews and that was pretty much it. All those new shows reportedly sucked and that was all I needed to know.

This year on the other hand I wasn't as indifferent, unfortunately. I wasn't smart enough to not watch those new shows that aired. I watched and in most cases wish that I hadn't.

There were at least two reasons that I checked the new shows. The biggest reason is of course that David Kelley came up with 'The Crazy Ones'. I'm always curious about what Kelley has to offer. Despite his flaws, he's still likely the most talented tv writer of all time.

Probably the second reason that I happened to take a look at the fall lineup was because Chuck Lorre seemingly came up with yet another generic sitcom called 'Mom'. According to at least Ken Levine, this was supposed to be good. So I had to check it out.

Now, I must confess that I didn't watch every new show that aired - but I did watch 'Mom', 'The Crazy Ones', I watched 'The Millers', I watched 'The Goldbergs' and there was at least one more sitcom.. yes.. 'Brooklyn Nine Nine' that I saw. I think I gave them all a fair chance.

I've already written about The Crazy Ones - so I guess it's time to write about those other wonderful new sitcoms that unfortunately didn't turn out to be wonderful at all. It turned out that all those other new comedies were, I'm sorry to say, awful.

So how bad was The Millers, lead by Will Arnett for example? Well, it looked cheap, there was no point to anything that happened and I kinda got a claustrophobic feel from the show. I was able to stomach 'The Millers' for about eight minutes before I had to turn it off.

The Goldbergs was a show that I hadn't heard anything about before. Jeff Garlin is always great in Curb Your Enthusiasm but he's completely wasted here. I couldn't believe how pointless the show was until I noticed that it was created by the guy who also wrote the movie 'Fanboys'. I gave up after ten minutes.

Brooklyn Nine Nine was supposedly a good show because critics liked it. But at the same time this show is nothing more than a weak imitation of the absolutely hilarious Reno 911. All the characters are unlikable, the storylines are terrible and the funny moments aren't funny.

Finally, Chuck Lorre's Mom. Even though we all 'knew' it was going to suck, I still kinda wanted the show to be good since it's about a single mom's struggles. I think it's an ideal underdog situation so the show can't be that bad, now can it?

The problem is of course that for some miraculous reason the characters aren't likable. Everyone's a cheater on the show. Everyone does nasty things to each other. The 'jokes' are so stupid and juvenile. Superbly talented actors are wasted here.

What's even worse is that Chuck Lorre had the nerve to write a vanity card in which he says that the writers worked really hard and that this is a serious show about a serious subject matter. Critics are supposed to keep that in mind when they take shots at the show..

I mean, this is unbelievably pathetic behavior from Lorre. At least those other showrunners were smart enough to keep their mouths shut. Most of them know that they screwed up (not sure about that Parks & Rec guy though).

But all in all, this is a really bad year for new sitcoms. It's not easy to come up with good shows, but you would expect that they could do better than this. 

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