Community, Modern Family, and Cougar Town
The Poop: It’s worth noting that as of this writing, three episodes have actually aired. Theoretically, I’m only really reviewing the pilot, but I can’t unsee those other two episodes. As is common with pilots, especially when there’s a big cast, there’s usually a serious info dump with all the characters having to explain who they are and how they’re connected to one another. There’s a lot of monologuing in the first episode, but it’s a necessary evil.
Exposition aside, Community is really good. The overarching story is about Jeff Winger, a disgraced lawyer who returns to community college. It’s a little hard to separate Joel McHale from The Soup, and it’s weird to see him acting. I keep expecting a studio audience to react to him. But the thing is, he’s funny and as we get to know Jeff better, I’m sure I won’t spend the episode waiting for a Wendy Williams joke.
In the pilot, Jeff spends most of is time trying to get a friend of his to fix him up with test answers, and the rest hitting on classmate Britta. He sets up a fake Spanish study group to help with the latter, except that it turns into an actual study group, with the greatest cast of misfits since The Breakfast Club. (The pilot is dedicated to John Hughes.) Most notable is Chevy Chase as Pierce, an addled businessman. You young people have probably never seen Chevy Chase be funny, but he is absolutely hilarious here. I’m also fond of Danny Pudi as Abed, an awkward young Pakistani. He scores most of the best lines in the pilot, and remains hilarious in future episodes.
Community reminds me of Arrested Development, which is the greatest sitcom ever, so I don’t say this lightly. There’s something about the way the characters are very much united in their absurdity. It’s the world they live in that’s strange, and they react to it in the only way they can. Rather than calling attention to a weird guy, they live in a world that’s weird. And the way the characters can be sons-of-bitches and then break your heart is very Bluth-like. It’s not hard to picture GOB in the study group, you know?
It’s a good show, and I’ve liked each succeeding episode more than the previous. This show is full of potential, and a perfect fit for NBC’s Thursday lineup.
The Prognosis: Record All. I’d be watching it no matter what, just out of Thursday inertia, but Community is a really funny show that stands just fine on its own.
Modern Family
ABC, Wednesday 9 PM
The Premise: A documentary-style look at three related families – a traditional mom-and-dad 
with three kids, adoptive gay parents, and a May-December romance.
with three kids, adoptive gay parents, and a May-December romance. The Personnel: The creators are sitcom vets Christopher Lloyd (Cheers) and Steven Levitan (Just Shoot Me). The cast includes Ed O’Neill (Married with Children, John from Cincinnati), Julie Bown (Jack’s wife on Lost), and Sofia Vergara (Knights of Prosperity). Also, there are a surprising number of actors who played one-shot roles on Nip/Tuck on this show. I’m not sure how that happened.
The Poop: I’m a sucker for anything shot documentary-style, so that’s a point right there. I was pretty much sold by the presence of Ed O’Nell – his recent role on John from Cincinnati was nothing short of fantastic and I’m just now realizing what a good actor he is. I expected to like it just for those reasons, but Modern Family has quickly become a favorite around the spunkybean offices.
While the three basic-setups are things that we’ve seen before, the characters are well-realized and funny. I never thought I’d watch a sitcom about parents raising young kids ever again, but the Dunphy family has my attention. When Luke shoots his sister with a pellet gun, his mother reminds him: “You know the rule. You shoot your sister, your dad shoots you.” And then, they have to find a time when the shooting works for everyone. This is all pretty funny, but the actual execution, in which Dad Phil ends up shooting Luke, his daughter’s boyfriend, and himself, is hilarious.
And we’ve seen the old guy married to a young hottie before, but this is a really good treatment of tired material. O’Neill’s Jay is crusty but very sensitive about being reminded how out of his league he is. There’s a nice moment where he’s mistaken for part of a mall-walking group, and he looks so defeated. Even better, he and his new wife are raising Manny, Gloria’s son from her first marriage. Manny is sort of a real-life Bobby Hill, which is the kind of character I want to see more of.
Mitchell and Cameron, the gay couple, were not as interesting right off the bat. A lot of their interaction seemed like things I’ve seen before, with the exception of a funny aside about how they need friends with more respectable names. But then Cameron presented their adopted daughter to the assembled family while wearing a robe and playing the theme from The Lion King, and I was sold.
While the content isn’t groundbreaking, the end product is really impressive. They found a way to trod familiar ground that makes it fresh and funny all over again. One of the best new shows of the season.
The Prognosis: Record All. This is much funnier than I could have expected, and it’s an interesting take on long-time sitcom themes.
Cougar Town
ABC, Wednesday 9:30
The Premise: A middle-aged woman adjusts to single life, and also to being middle-aged. The Personnel: Bill Lawrence, the man who brought us Scrubs is the creator here. The big news is the star, Courtney Cox, returning to TV. (We try not to talk about her first return to TV, Dirt.) Also in the cast are Busy Philipps (Freaks and Geeks), Dan Byrd (Aliens in America), Christa Miller (Scrubs and Lawrence’s real-life wife), and Brian Van Holt (Butchie Yost on John from Cincinnati – that’s right, two consecutive review with JFC alumni). These are people I enjoy seeing on TV.
The Poop: When writing a pilot, I would recommend against having the first episode focus on how badly the main character needs to get laid. That can be funny, but that’s not the foot you want to put forward, unless that’s actually the theme of the entire series. And really, that shouldn’t be the theme of an entire series.
Frankly, Cox is kind of shrill here, which is an unpleasant reminder of the last seasons of Friends. She’s funny, but her character, Jules, yells too much. I don’t know how I’ve made her angry, but I’m sorry and I would apologize if I could.
Cougar Town is a weird mix of new ideas and clichés. There are a lot of jokes about what breast implants and what happens to women when they get older, and we’ve seen it thousands of times before. But then we have Jules’ high-school son, who brings us another angle on the whole “Mom rediscovers herself” trope. And let’s face it, the B-plot about kids stealing Jules’ cleavage-exposing realtor for masturbatory purposes is pretty new.
This is such a good cast, it’s worth sticking around on that basis alone. In particular, Busy Philipps was killing me as Jules’ younger, trashy friend. (Jules: “You have a hickey on your chest. And I can tell the guy was missing a tooth.”) There are some very funny people in the cast who are elevating even the weakest gags.
The Prognosis: I’m sticking around for now. Scrubs is one of my all-time favorites, so I’m confident that Bill Lawrence will deliver.
Wow, three shows reviewed, two that went to “Record All” and one qualified recommendation. That’s pretty good, right? Tomorrow, I’ll look at three shows that I didn’t enjoy, just to balance things out.
