The All-Pilot Project: Southland and The Goode Family
The Poop: Man, this show is certainly earnest. Southland works very hard to convey Important Truths. It’s framed pretty well, since it’s Ben’s first day on the job, his partner has an in-story reason to expound on Being a Cop and What’s Wrong with People and the Problems of Inner City Life. (This show is so earnest I have to capitalize!)
Weirdly, there’s also an undercurrent of cynicism. My tastes in cop shows run fairly dark, and even I was surprised at the way Ben’s partner talked to him after the officer-involved shooting. Basically, he says it’s always a good thing, because “Sometimes you get the chance to take one of them out once and for all.” It’s pretty dark.
I actually liked this quite a bit, with some reservations. There wasn’t much in terms of plotting that was actually memorable – sort of a less corrupt version of Training Day. But building an episode around learning the ropes means that it’s really just an attempt for the series to lay out its philosophy. There’s nothing wrong with that, but you don’t really leave knowing anything about the characters. Later episodes did get better, but based on just the pilot, I didn’t have any reason to care about them as characters. It’ll play much better as a DVD box set, but as a standalone, it’s a little shaky.
By the way, I really didn’t like the way they bleeped out some of the language. I realize what they can and can’t say on NBC, but it’s distracting. And hearing somebody get bleeped makes me think of Arrested Development, which used that effect for comedy. I’d rather they tone down the language so they don’t need that break from reality. Like, we realize that Jack Bauer would probably say mote than ‘Dammit’ when the terrorist gets away, but it’s better than hearing a post-production bleep. I understand their reasoning, but I don’t care for it.
The Prognosis: I probably wouldn’t have come back just based on the pilot, but later episodes have made me more interested in next season. I’ll probably give it another shot and see if the characters have become more than mouthpieces.
The Goode Family
ABC, Cancelled
The Premise: An animated series about a liberal family who struggles to make the right political, 
social, and environmental choices all the time, even when it doesn’t make sense.
social, and environmental choices all the time, even when it doesn’t make sense.The Personnel: Created by Mike Judge of Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill, and Office Space fame. Judge, Nancy Carell (The Daily Show, Steve Carell’s wife), Dave Herman (Futurama) and Linda Cardellini (Freaks and Geeks) play the rest of the family. Brian Doyle-Murray, Toby Huss, and Julia Sweeney also have regular roles.
The Poop: It’s worth noting that, as with King of the Hill, the pilot was the worst episode. I absolutely adore King of the Hill, and I still find the pilot a tough slog. Nobody quite acts in character and the pace is painfully slow. Even the second episode was immediately better, though. The same thing happened here – I think part of it is the way Mike Judge wants to set up recurring jokes and character bits so he doesn’t have to explain them time and time again. In King it was Joseph’s parentage, here it’s the fact that forcibly vegan family dog Che is psychotic from hunger and is cannibalizing other neighborhood pets. It’s much funnier than it sounds, but the joke is explained at length in the pilot. It pays off in later episodes, since only the slightest reference to this thread is immediately clear and gets a fast laugh.
The relationships are also explained in great detail – for example, their son, Ubuntu, is adopted from Africa. Only they inadvertently ended up with a South African baby, so he’s white, but still African-American. Obviously explanation is needed for why there’s a white kid named “Ubuntu” clad in African national colors. Again, it’s spelled out here and it’s assumed afterwards that we can remember. As with Southland, it makes for an awkward pilot, but Mike Judge has earned our trust enough that a rough pilot doesn’t bother me that much.
Even with all the exposition, there are some legitimately funny jokes here. Gerald spinning two-ply toilet paper into single-ply, for example. In a lot of ways, it’s a reverse King of the Hill. Where the Hills were a good-hearted conservative family who couldn’t keep up with society, the Goodes are good-hearted liberals trying to change society. And both can be a little flaky. That’s what I love about Mike Judge – he plays his own politics close to the vest, equally sympathetic to the Hills and Goodes as well as being equally aware of their foibles.
Personally, I’m impressed that Judge actually made a show about knee-jerk liberalism. It could easily come off as bullying, but Gerald Goode is a legitimately likeable character whose ideals sometimes get in the way of common sense. (A vegan dog? Come on, man!) While it might seem just mean to pick on the “Freegan” movement (people who refuse to buy anything), it’s refreshing to see somebody acknowledge that there is some hypocrisy there. And no, recycling doesn’t automatically make you a good person. It’s a risky move, finding the difference between picking on hippies and finding what’s funny about various trendy movements.
The Prognosis: Well, it’s been cancelled (which also ensures that ABC won’t be picking up King of the Hill, which just destroys me), but this was a really witty, funny show. I don’t know whether it’s the time slot or whether the humor didn’t land with people. (The opening features the family and a panda picking up garbage.) It’s really a shame. Farewell, Goodes (and by extension, Hills) – I’ll miss you.
