TV Review: Up All Night and Free Agents

As per usual, NBC swung and missed last night with a pair of new pilots. At least for me. Last night was an unfortunate instance of a good show that doesn't have an appealing concept and a bad show that does. Sigh.

UP ALL NIGHT

Starring the always lovely and funny Christina Applegate and Arrested Development alum Will Arnett, Up All Night should have been a home run. For a lot of viewers, I'm guessing it absolutely was. It has a great cast and was well made. That said, I am quite happily single and childless and the show's concept held very little appeal for me and hardly any laughs. Will and Christina brought a lot of warmth and energy to their roles as slightly-bumbling, but adoring new parents, but the proposed hilarity of tending to a crying baby all night was lost on me. I'm sure for people who've been through the trials and tribulations of new parenthood this show was a sheer delight, but for me? Well, honestly, I was incredibly bored. The pilot had its moments, and elicited a few smiles from me, but overall, this just isn't the kind of show I'm going to love, and that's okay. It doesn't make it a bad show just because it's not my kind of show. That said, I'm hearing rumors that Maya Rudolph's character role is being expanded and that Will Arnett's will probably be the one to take a fair bit of the hit. Arnett is a showkiller, to be sure, but I'd still prefer to see more of him than Maya (not that I don't like Maya, but a little goes a long way). In short, this just isn't my cup of tea, which isn't to say that the tea was poorly made. I'll give it another week to branch out in terms of storyline, but if it's still as baby-centric as the pilot, I'm pretty sure I won't last long. You never know though. I quite enjoy Raising Hope, but that has way more to do with Martha Plimpton and Garret Dillahunt than with the baby. Both shows just make me surer and surer that I never ever want to have children. Cautionary tales.

Pilot Grade: C- (?)
(I honestly had a hard time assigning a grade because objectively, I could appreciate that it would appeal to a lot of people, but more importantly, it didn't really appeal to me...)


FREE AGENTS

On the other side of the spectrum, we have a fairly horrible show that has a concept that's much more appealing to me, even if the show itself isn't. I didn't hate this one as much as most critics out there, but I didn't much enjoy it either. The show focuses on a man and woman who are both reeling from their past relationships (a recent divorce for him, a dead fiance for her) and who find each other. On the surface, it sounds pretty decent, but in execution, it was pretty unfortunate. It had a few moments that were charming, but all in all, the show itself seemed to think it was a lot funnier than the viewing audience. The most painfully unfunny scene of the pilot included Hank Azaria's character making up names of sexual positions amid the roaring laughter of his coworkers. Yeah, not that funny. At all, in fact. It wasn't even crude. It was just lame. I spent the better part of the show wishing these actors that I like (or in Anthony Head's case, absolutely LOVE) were in a far better show. Oh, Giles. You can do so much better. Really, the biggest laugh for me was the fact that the female lead opposite Hank Azaria was named Helen. That's kind of sad. Overall, the characters simply weren't very funny or likeable and the chemistry between the two leads was lacking. When a show is based around said chemistry, and said chemistry is lacking, that show is in trouble. I don't really have much desire to get to know these characters better, but I might give it another week just to see if the writers of the show saw what I saw and made some major adjustments. I'm always torn when it comes to a Whedonverse alum finding him/herself in a dud. On the one hand, I want them to succeed, but on the other, rather larger hand, I want their show to tank so they can move on to bigger and better things. Sigh.

Pilot Grade: D+

NBC Pilots 2011: Volume 2 (comedies)

It's always tough for me to really evaluate the potential of new comedies. In general, their trailers are almost always pretty bad, even if the show itself isn't. There's just so much to a joke that is based on set-up, character profiles, and timing--none of which are easy to convey in a three minute collage of clips. More often than not, I'm underwhelmed, or downright cringing. But, comedy is more particular to individual tastes that other genres typically, so to each his/her own, I suppose. I have to give NBC credit for trying, but I don't know that adding another comedy block was the best plan of action. I think they're hoping for a breakout hit like ABC scored with Modern Family two years ago, but based on what I've seen so far, I have some serious doubts. Given the outright slaughter of all their new comedies from last year, expanding their slate is a bold move, but one that I'm doubting will pay off. That said, NBC's new comedic offerings don't look half as awful as ABC's or CBS's, so maybe they have a chance after all.

Here are the three new comedies premiering this fall on NBC.

UP ALL NIGHT

Description: Stars Christina Applegate (Samantha Who?), Maya Rudolph (Saturday Night Live), and Will Arnett (Arrested Development). Parks and Recreation writer Emily Spivey wrote the pilot and will executive-produce with Saturday Night Live's Lorne Michaels.



First Impressions: On paper, this looks like it has all the makings of a good show (in spite of the cast of showkillers), but at the end of the day, the "age old" question of "Can you really have it all?" is simply a little too age old. This is territory that has been explored entirely too many times to see fresh or interesting. To boot, it's territory that I've never been fond of. Being as happily childless as I am, I simply can't relate to the any of this. What's worse, shows like this make people's desires to have children even more confounding. I have never looked at a pile of tiny socks and turned to mush and I have never mortgaged my entire identity so that I can help overpopulate the earth, and the idea of watching nothing but that week-to-week doesn't really interest me. That said, Applegate and Arnett seem to work well together (maybe showkiller + showkiller = success?) and I can see where this show would appeal to most people. The trailer had its moments and did manage to imbue this most unfortunate of subjects with some charm. I can't say I'm chomping at the bit for this one, but it doesn't look like a total disaster either.


WHITNEY

Description: Stars Whitney Cummings (Comedy Central), Chris D'Elia (Glory Daze), and Beverly D'Angelo (Entourage).



First Impressions: Okay, on the other side of the spectrum, we have a comedy with a theme that I can certainly understand, but that looks pretty awful in the long-run. The notion that marriage is the quickest way to ruin a good relationship is one of the greatest truisms around, but when the annoying and unappealing Whitney Cummings is the one delivering this message, I can't bring myself to be interested. I'm honestly not too familiar with her work on Comedy Central, but I'm hoping this is a case of network restrictions stifling cable-style comedy. There were a couple of scenes in the trailer that elicited a bit of smile, but most of them were at the hands of the guy playing her husband, which, for a show called "Whitney" seemed a little odd. Whatever the case may be, the few brief moments of charm were greatly outweighed by the heaping bowlfuls of cliche and cringe-worthiness. Given that the trailer basically showed the entire pilot (seriously, never before have a seen a trailer that essentially laid out the entire first episode in near chronological order like that), I'm not too enthusiastic about the series as a whole. Were this not a Whitney Cummings' vehicle, I'd be more willing to give it a chance, but I find her completely unappealing and her humor seems painfully forced. All in all, I don't think this show is featuring anything new or innovative and isn't covering familiar ground in a way that sucks me in. As ever, I'll give it a shot, but I'll be truly surprised if this holds water.


FREE AGENTS

Description: Stars Hank Azaria (The Simpsons), Kathryn Hahn (Hung), Anthony Head (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), and Joe Lo Truglio (Reno 911!). From creator John Enbom (PARTY DOWN) and Emmy Award-winning director Todd Holland (MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE).



First Impressions: GILES!!! That was honestly the first impression, and pretty much the main good impression. Wow, this is another American reboot of a British series (which is a phenomenon that often yields diminishing returns) and while the cast and concept seem solid, the execution looks pretty bad. The people sitting around the table might have thought Hank Azaria's laundry list of sexual positions was hi-larious, but it just didn't quite have the right snap to it. I don't know, maybe this is a case where the trailer simply doesn't do the show any favors, but I found this pretty bland and hackneyed. I'm hoping the actual program has a lot more charm and a lot more laughs in store. It has Giles in it (even if he's playing the anti-Giles), so I'm immediately more invested than I would be otherwise, and the cast and creative team seem promising, so I have my fingers crossed that this one is better than it looks. From the trailer alone, it seems like a lot of stock characters dealing with a lot of things we've seen a million times before. If the show can set itself apart somehow, I think it could have some potential. Maybe I just watch entirely too much TV (blasphemy!), but these days, I need something unique or innovative to really invest. Otherwise, they'd better just hope that the chemistry between the leads is palpable because that appears to be central to the entire show. If that's a bust, the show likely will be as well.