falcotron Reviews

Good Morning, Miami (2002–2004)

What is the point of this show?

[24 October 2002]

I can't see how the creators expect this show to last more than half a season.

Good Morning, Miami is attempting to be a romantic comedy and a workplace ensemble comedy at the same time (the sideplot between Jake and his grandmother is actually pretty good, but it barely intersects with the rest of the show, so let's ignore it), but failing miserably at both.

First, as a romantic comedy, this is a subpar clone of the Ross/Rachel relationship from Friends. Jake, like Ross, is such a jackass it's embarassing to watch. Dylan, like Rachel, is completely undeserving of Jake's obsession (and Jake, like Ross, even knows this). Rachel is a walking haircut--with Dylan, this is even made explicit (not only is she a not-particularly-exceptional hairdresser for a living, but twice people have referred to her as "the haircut" in Jake's presence, with no objection from him).

In fact, as much of a buffoon as Gavin is, it's easier to root for him and Dylan. For a guy who's both as needy and as superficial as Gavin, Dylan is perfect. And, while the codependent validation that she gets from Gavin may not be healthy, it's at least a step up from what she'd get from a guy who's obsessed with her for no other reason than that she's teddy-bear cute.

Besides, once Jake and Dylan get together (as, the ads tell us, all of America is rooting for) after half a season, where can the show go? This isn't Sam and Diane, or Dave and Lisa--this isn't even Monica and Chandler. The romantic comedy plot pretty much ends when Jake gets his prize.

On to the ensemble workplace. In this case, the source is clearly News Radio. Jake is Dave, the young boss trying against all hope to do a decent job with a hopeless staff. Gavin is Bill, the pompous newsman who has no idea how pathetic he is. Frank is Matthew, the most incompetent and pathetic man on the planet. Penny is Beth, the weird, tough-but-ditzy secretary who never does any work but seems to be the only one who can understand the others' relationships. (Lucia and Sister Brenda are such ridiculous stereotypes they didn't have to be ripped off from anywhere.)

This kind of ensemble worked in News Radio because the writers were brilliant enough to make us relate to the characters even though they were ludicrous and unsympathetic. Will and Grace has followed the same path.

But Good Morning, Miami has made no attempt to take that road; instead, the writers seem to be already trying to "humanize" the characters to make them sympathetic (what a dying show of this type usually does in its last season), while at the same time playing them for one-off laughs.

More importantly, the relationships between the characters that News Radio, Will and Grace, and other shows successfully developed made their stereotyped characters funny for years. Without Karen's relationships with Jack and Grace, or Matthew's relationships with Bill and Joe, neither one of them would be worth watching by the end of the first season. While there's been a half-hearted attempt to show Frank and Sister Brenda interacting on the sidelines, there's no humor whatsoever there. Lucia and Sister Brenda were both played out by the third episode.

Do Over (2002–2003)

Downhill fast...

[24 October 2002]

This show started off much better than I expected, but it's been going downhill episode by episode. This is a disappointment--a good cast (including the two newcomer stars), a great concept, an interesting start; it should be a good show. But it's not.

The anachronisms don't bother me too much. But then I was in 6th grade in 1980, so the fact that the show looks and sounds more like 1984 isn't too much of a problem for me.

Even the fact that Do Over is rarely funny would be excusable if it had something else going for it.

I wish the writers could decide whether the show was aimed at 30-somethings or teenagers, but I know 80s music is popular among teens, so I understand.

The real problem is that the characters make less and less sense with each episode. Cheryl, is decent as a sitcom evil sister, and Isabelle might work as a more minor character, but the major characters are completely implausible and impossible to relate to.

Let's start with Joel. Why is he so interested in Holly? Wouldn't he realize that she was nothing special after spending five minutes with her? And wouldn't he feel like a child-molester chasing a 14-year-old girl? Even what you'd expect from a formulaic sitcom (Joel gives a chance to the perfect girl he passed up the first time around--maybe Isabelle?) would be better than this. (Of course realistically, someone with a 14-year-old's hormones and a 34-year-old's experience would probably be picking up college-age girls and getting laid every weekend, but that wouldn't make a good show.)

Now, on to Pat. Since there was no real punk community for him to hang out with at that time, it's plausible that he'd be the weirdo in a semi-nerdish group like Joel and friends (that's pretty much what I was in 1984). I'd like to be able to relate to Pat, but I can't even understand him. Def Leppard?!? I see why he wanted to get Joel to sneak off to a concert, but wouldn't it be, say, an X show at some small club? (And wouldn't a Nirvana-quoting 34-year-old like Joel also be more interested in seeing some classic alternative band that he'd missed the first time around than Def Leppard?)

The parents are completely inconsistent; I get the feeling that whenever the writers don't know what to do with Joel's parents, they decide to write for Red and Kitty Forman (from That 70s Show) instead. This laziness means that the characters haven't been developed at all--and really can't be. They're just Eric's parents with a couple of extra one-shot jokes thrown in.

And other than the Larsens, Pat, Isabelle, and Holly, there are no other real characters at all.

I wish the creators had spent more time watching Square Pegs (or even That 80s Show).

Then again, I suppose I shouldn't have expected much from the "Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place" team, another show that wasted good actors on inconsistent and un-fleshed-out characters.

NewsRadio (1995–1999)

Maura Tierney

[24 October 2002]

There have been many comments on this amazing show, but Maura Tierney has not gotten her due. Everyone agrees that she was cute, and a great comedy actor, and Lisa was a funny character in her own right. But more importantly, Maura made Phil Hartman, Dave Foley, and Stephen Root (already three of the best comedy actors in television history)even funnier than they already were.

Watch the scenes where Bill, Dave, and Jimmy interact with the whole ensemble, and you can see that it's usually their reactions to Lisa's reactions that make the scene.

Watch the three of them interacting with Lisa, then watch them interacting with other characters. While Bill and Dave, Dave and Jimmy, and Bill and Matthew were all hilarious interactions in their own right, all three of them had their best moments when driving Lisa crazy (despite the fact that Bill spent much more time with Dave and Matthew, and Jimmy with Dave and Beth, than either spent with her).

Maura had a weird kind of grace on this show--her gestures and reactions were always over-the-top, and yet they always looked credible. Watch her carefully, and it's hard to believe any actor would be able to pull off the anxious mannerisms, the dramatic twirls, and the rest of what made her Lisa Miller. And yet, if you watch the episodes, it all works.

The show probably would have been funny even without Maura; Dave/Bill and Dave/Jimmy alone would have made it better than anything else non-animated on the air in the late 90s, and the writing was truly amazing. But Maura turned News Radio from a very good sitcom into possibly the best sitcom in history.

News Radio has often been compared to Mary Tyler Moore. Interestingly, Mary often had the same effect on other actors around her. Mr. Grant, Rhoda, and Murray were all at their best when Mary was around. Mary also had completely exaggerated mannerisms that somehow managed to be believable and graceful.

By the way, the biggest problem with the fifth season was that John Lovitz didn't fit into the rhythm of the show. But toward the end of the season, he worked. Why? Max's interactions with Dave and Matthew were never as strong as Bill's, and the new Max/Joe relationship was too similar to Matthew/Joe. It wasn't any of these interactions that made Max work; it was when you started seeing Lisa and Max work together in the middle of the season that he began to click.

It's a pity that Maura moved on to ER. While her character is interesting, and she's doing a great job with it, she's rarely used in a way that allows her to bring out the best in her fellow actors. The same has been true in most of her movie roles (including comedies like Liar, Liar); only in Primary Colors has she had any chance to do what she does best.