Not with a Bang but with a Whimper

The next sitcom I downloaded was The Big Bang Theory on CBS. This show is created by the dude behind Two and a Half Men as well as Dharma and Greg. I was surprised to find the pilot was directed by the same cat who directed the pilot for Back to You, making for a heavy James Burrows slant to Now that's Comedy. In brief: TBBT throws two nerdy geniuses into social interaction with (you guessed it!) a generic hotty from across the hall. I went into this show with low expectations as I saw it metacritiqued in the yellow. And after watching the pilot I do agree with this consensus but I will admit, however, that this show has a lot going for it (even if only potentially).

First off, this show needs to ditch it's laugh track or risk having me watch the show closed-captioned. It was honestly distracting/annoying/grating/sob-inducing. As a society I think we've moved beyond the need for laugh tracks but, as this is a sitcom, I guess it's to be expected? If we can't rid ourselves of these antiquated techniques then for god's sake at least use a live studio audience. This provides some semblance of proportioned laughs forced upon a viewer. Moving on!

The majority of jokes in TBBT are pretty obvious and really only function on a familiar level. Oh yes nerds like Star Wars, hi-larious. At one point our duo are debating interaction with the new move-in. Leonard comments on their closed circle of friends. Sheldon defends himself by saying he has 318 friends on myspace and Leonard "quips" that he does but has never met a single one. These lines led my roommate (ignorant of the show's origins) to ask "who are these guys the Dharma and Greg of nerds?" Too many jokes simply play off nerd cliches and the attempts at physics references usually come off as obvious or wikipedia-ed.

That all being said however! the dialogue in the script is actually quite well written. The manner in which Sheldon and Leonard talk is engaging and makes me wish for funnier jokes. Secondly, the acting is pretty superb. Sheldon in particular nails his wordy lines and adds plenty of sarcastic disdain sending my heart all a flutter. The characters probably flirt with familiarity but I think the acting brings them past that mostly. It's the acting that really saves this show, elevating mediocre jokes into laugh-earners!

So, I'm conflicted. Too many lame easy jokes to call TBBT good but such deftly acted and engaging characters to write off immediately. What's a boy to do? I wish perhaps they could hand the show over to some people that are willing to move beyond humour mined from library joke books, but I've learned wishing does nothing in regards to the fate of comedy shows. I really want this show to get better. I'll tune-in likely to only find heartbreak.

Ditch the damned laugh track though, yeesh.

The Show's called Chuck

I was really looking forward to this new show Chuck. In brief: charismatic and comical nerd gets involved with secret agent nonsense and some generic smoking hotty. I missed it on Monday night the same way I missed Heroes. What the hell was I thinking? Oh yes, I was hoping to see Emily Haines dance. I (again) was disappointed.

And! the trailer was quite promising: ninja jokes, computer jokes, Batman jokes, videogame jokes, CHiPs jokes... But I just finished my downloaded pilot and honestly, what the hell NBC?

I'm not going to say there weren't any good jokes, in fact those jokes listed above were all pretty respectable, but most were in the trailer. (When did TV shows start having trailers btw?) If you watched the trailer there's a moment where Chuck is beat-boxing "Vicky Vale!" but looks up to see the "smoking hotty" and so stops the beat-boxing and drops the phone all so suddenly--a well acted and timed physical comedy beat. The full length show also has a pretty funny follow up joke that's not included in the trailer. So there are for sure some quality moments in the show but this quality isn't all that consistent. For instance, the whole buddy aspect, which is a main element of the show, fails pretty much outright.

The buddy system is just as important in comedy as it is in... bench pressing I guess? But I mean it's a pretty standard mechanism, two characters playing off each other to generate the laughs. This particular instance has a wise cracking lead and the more-of-a-loser-than-the-lead foil. But this foil, named Morgan, is more of a loser than the lead, but he's never really funny. The jokes involving him fall flat 95% of the time. Not since Kanye and Myers have we had such dead weight in a team (Myers here being the dead weight of course).

My therapist(s) say that I need to work on being more optimistic though, so I am willing to come back to this show a few more times in hopes things will tighten up. It won't be hard for Chuck to set itself apart from the new comedies this season so I may find myself downloading it consistently out of plain boredom. Also there could be more ninja jokes. I love ninja jokes.

I don't have a clever sign off line, dammit.

Back to Sitcoms

Perhaps I should start off by saying that I never really enjoyed either Everybody Loves Raymond or Frasier. Perhaps I should start off by saying that I never really enjoyed sitcoms. Perhaps I should start off by saying that when I read about the new show Back to You I rolled my eyes. I think that covers my ass adequately.

Well I write a blog on comedy and Back to You is one of the most anticipated comedies hitting this new season, maybe I'd be amiss if I didn't blog about it at least once. So I made myself catch the tail end of the premier. I wasn't all that impressed. But you know to be fair perhaps I should watch the entire show before I pan it outright yeah? So I found myself a download.

When I checked out the credits I was sort of excited to see Christopher Lloyd was a co-creator. Doc Brown knows a thing or two about funny. Unfortunately there are multiple Christopher Lloyds in this universe and this is the bloke behind Frasier and Wings. Alas.

So onto the show! The pilot actually starts with a youtube clip of Grammer's character blooping on live TV. I think a few other comedies (and reality) have hit this joke first, but keep trying guys. The show centers around the production of the daily news and the team of characters doesn't really provide the audience with anything they haven't seen before. In fact the characters are strangely reminiscent of folks from Bruce Almighty and The Anchorman. The one character that wasn't immediately recognizable was the news director but that's quickly rectified with a brief monologue. He's an internet geek promoted to TV news director and is 26. Him and the sports announcer provide the closest approximation to humour (ie I laughed at each of them once).

But the real point, I guess, of the show is the chemistry between our two leads, however, the scenes featuring Grammer and Heaton were some of the most awkwardly acted scenes I've seen on television recently. I don't know if it's a lack of chemistry or just poor acting, but their scenes come off like some low quality local theatre. Both of these cats are sitcom stars, what's the deal? Mysteriously, the show also attempts to pull on the old heart strings with the revelation of Grammer as the father to Heaton's 10 year old daughter. The last scene is Grammer sipping some sort of bourbon or whiskey and calling Heaton to tell her the child is magnificent. This was the third time I laughed at the show.

Back to You isn't original in any regard. Unfortunately it isn't really funny in any regard either. The young geeky news manager and sports dude don't provide consistent laughs and the actual main characters/main thrust of the show are actually painful to watch. Hell though, I bet this show will be a hit and I'll have another reason to loathe Fox.

The Office returns this week.

So I started reading my monday morning webcomics....

Who the hell is Ryan Estrada?

Comedy Spotting

Being the second post of Now That's Comedy I decided to start off with my FIRST comedian feature. When I feature a comedian I'll try to write something a little interesting on his/her style and where you can see/hear some performance. Demetri Martin gets the honour of being the first featured comedian because, well, my roommate said so.

I was introduced to Demetri Martin on The Daily Show via his Trendspotting segments. His quirky sense of humour and delivery earned him a returning role on The Daily Show and in my ... heart. So! I obtained his comedy album These are Jokes and didn't delete it after a run through. The album is a live show bookended with some studio songs that are actually not immediately skippable. After listening to the performance I often enjoy Demetri's song on grapes. They are so delicious.

What Demetri does right is his delivery. His jokes are admirable in their simplicity but his delivery adds an almost childlike whimsy and sense of discovery to the material that moves a joke on sweater vests into the joke my sister will demand anytime any semblance of the topic is broached. Along with his delivery Demetri also knows how to punctuate his jokes with both music and graphics. Some of my favourite bits involve one of those paper standy-jobs our elementary profs used to make long brainstormed lists of what type of animals in the sea we could do our projects on. And who doesn't like a joke that utilizes a pie chart? I'll toss out the word multimodal here because I know some of you cats like that sort of thing.

Check out his videos on Comedy Central (though I have no idea where you could find them).

See ya soon.