The Sing-Off season 3 left me with a feeling of disappointment.
As I previously stated, the advancement of the Dartmouth Aires over other groups never sat well with me. As far as I was concerned, the Dartmouth Aires were the weak link of a very strong final eight. It wasn't a matter of one bad decision along with seven very good decisions. It was a matter of the judges making the wrong choice in virtually every episode (Delilah did fall on their own sword, so I'll give the judges a pass that week) by simply not eliminating the Aires. I am aware that it's just my personal opinion that the Aires weren't that good and it's not some objective truth.
The elimination of Afro-Blue, however, went from my disagreeing with the judges over the quality of the groups, to just feeling cheated. For one, Ben admitted that Afro-Blue was his favorite group. Additionally, Sara Bareilles said she decided to vote with the group that she had a great emotional connection and ignored that the Afro-Blues moved her to tears twice. Lastly, Afro-Blue never sounded bad or technically defficient (and Dartmouth Aires continually got comments toward that effect). Their instructions from the judges to dumb down their sound and simultaneously still keep delivering their signature sound put the group in a hole they couldn't climb out of.
Ben Folds addressed the twitter haters about Afro-Blue's dismissal on his blog here:
http://www.nbc.com/sing-off/on-key-with-ben-folds/
It's with some shame that I admit that I was one of those haters. I tried to articulate this with some self-awareness that I was clearly getting too invested in a TV program, but at the same time I now realize that I was adding a lot of negativity to the blogosphere and twittersphere.
The Dartmouth Aires didn't end up derailing the season for me, because at the end of the day, the best group won. The Pentatonix were a cut above the other groups, but this season was sufficiently more dramatic in that they didn't emerge as a clear winner until a few weeks in.
Congrats to the Pentatonix, as well as the other groups with strong finishes. I even tip my hat to the Aires for persevering and improving
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Thursday, November 24, 2011
The failure of Community
College is generally portrayed in popular culture as an experimental period following high school that serve as the best four years of your life. Portrayals of the college experience on TV tend to marginalize all the outliers to that experience such as:
-The commuters who simultaneously have a foot in the working world
-The people already in the working world who begrudgingly return to school because they have no other option
-Older students who don't get into the social aspects of college because they have little in common with the primary age bracket that comprises most of the campus
-The people who who view their current college as their safety school rather than shangri-la and subsequently view it as either a temporary stop or a necessary evil
"Community" is about marginalized types deciding to make the best of their second-rate lot by banding together to enjoy their college experience the way that they're entitled to enjoy it. It's an underdog story and the triumphant moments at the end of each episode revolve around the group uniting together. When Troy comes to Britta's rescue when she gets paralyzed up on stage at the dancing competition, or Britta and Jeff team up together to fend off some bullies, the group succeeds at being "the cool kids" on campus (or whatever it is their goal is in that episode) because their bonds to each other have been tested and strengthened.
From that point of view, the show initially had a good concept and framework that intrigued me and kept me going through the first season. While the show wasn't particularly funny and had some awkward kinks, it did have some genuinely gooey moments in the last couple minutes of the episode that would redeem the half-hour experience for me. At least that was the case in the first season.
Most of the people I know who love discussing TV, blog about TV, or write about it professionally, they have praised the show as one of the smartest and most enjoyable programs on television and that praise seems to have increased as the show goes on.
For me, it's been the opposite experience.
To me, the show's main crime is that it is so caught up at making the academic community salivate with its deft handling of filmic conventions that it forgets to be entertaining. In terms of the amount of conflict going on, the plots can be incredibly insubstantial. To their credit, Community is experimental so they take risks and sometimes miss. That's something I admire over a show like "Modern Family" (a best-case scenario) or "Two and a Half Men" but I think the show rarely ever has baseline episodes which follow the more familiar beats of a sitcom.
I also think for a comedy, the show's humor factor is very low. It's not a show that goes for one-liners often and relies more on character-based humor and I think your mileage may vary depending on how you find the characters, which to me is kind of a weak point.
For one, the characters on the show don't really get along as well as advertised. It seems everyone hates Pierce and the group routinely gets mad at Jeff. The show devotes much of its screentime to having characters arguing with each other, as if the writing room can't think of any way to build up to climaxes. I will concede that the show's magic is often how it comes to the other side on the denouement.
The ensemble as a whole feels vastly overrated to me. Shirley (Yvette Nicole Brown) seems rather stereotypical and Annie (Allison Brie) can feel increasingly like a caricature. To her credit, Allison Brie infuses Annie with comic characteristics and even has a penchant for physical comedy but her heightened reactions don't really match the tone of the show. Joel McHale comes off somewhat awkwardly as the rebellious cool kid on campus, but I think that's the writing which asks us to believe that someone in his 30's could ever be the coolest kid on campus. Pierce suffers a little bit from being whatever the show needs him to be week-to-week. His varying levels of kindness are inconsistent.
-The commuters who simultaneously have a foot in the working world
-The people already in the working world who begrudgingly return to school because they have no other option
-Older students who don't get into the social aspects of college because they have little in common with the primary age bracket that comprises most of the campus
-The people who who view their current college as their safety school rather than shangri-la and subsequently view it as either a temporary stop or a necessary evil
"Community" is about marginalized types deciding to make the best of their second-rate lot by banding together to enjoy their college experience the way that they're entitled to enjoy it. It's an underdog story and the triumphant moments at the end of each episode revolve around the group uniting together. When Troy comes to Britta's rescue when she gets paralyzed up on stage at the dancing competition, or Britta and Jeff team up together to fend off some bullies, the group succeeds at being "the cool kids" on campus (or whatever it is their goal is in that episode) because their bonds to each other have been tested and strengthened.
From that point of view, the show initially had a good concept and framework that intrigued me and kept me going through the first season. While the show wasn't particularly funny and had some awkward kinks, it did have some genuinely gooey moments in the last couple minutes of the episode that would redeem the half-hour experience for me. At least that was the case in the first season.
Most of the people I know who love discussing TV, blog about TV, or write about it professionally, they have praised the show as one of the smartest and most enjoyable programs on television and that praise seems to have increased as the show goes on.
For me, it's been the opposite experience.
To me, the show's main crime is that it is so caught up at making the academic community salivate with its deft handling of filmic conventions that it forgets to be entertaining. In terms of the amount of conflict going on, the plots can be incredibly insubstantial. To their credit, Community is experimental so they take risks and sometimes miss. That's something I admire over a show like "Modern Family" (a best-case scenario) or "Two and a Half Men" but I think the show rarely ever has baseline episodes which follow the more familiar beats of a sitcom.
I also think for a comedy, the show's humor factor is very low. It's not a show that goes for one-liners often and relies more on character-based humor and I think your mileage may vary depending on how you find the characters, which to me is kind of a weak point.
For one, the characters on the show don't really get along as well as advertised. It seems everyone hates Pierce and the group routinely gets mad at Jeff. The show devotes much of its screentime to having characters arguing with each other, as if the writing room can't think of any way to build up to climaxes. I will concede that the show's magic is often how it comes to the other side on the denouement.
The ensemble as a whole feels vastly overrated to me. Shirley (Yvette Nicole Brown) seems rather stereotypical and Annie (Allison Brie) can feel increasingly like a caricature. To her credit, Allison Brie infuses Annie with comic characteristics and even has a penchant for physical comedy but her heightened reactions don't really match the tone of the show. Joel McHale comes off somewhat awkwardly as the rebellious cool kid on campus, but I think that's the writing which asks us to believe that someone in his 30's could ever be the coolest kid on campus. Pierce suffers a little bit from being whatever the show needs him to be week-to-week. His varying levels of kindness are inconsistent.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
How I've come to hate the Dartmouth Aires and other Sing-Off Thoughts
My apologies for not writing about the Sing-Off as I did last year in such winning fashion (also here: http://bit.ly/if3nxR.
This season, I've been finding myself experiencing a feeling I normally don't have towards TV characters and that is borderline hatred.
Normally, I don't hate a TV character because it's pointless to hate a fictional character.
In this case, my anger is directed towards real life people and that's also ironic, because they're a group of 16 guys who I've never met and I probably wouldn't mind so much if I did ever meet them. The first week, I didn't particularly like their song choice, but I didn't think they deserved to be axed. That was way back when they were in the same bracket as a group of Liberian refugees who were there for the sob story factor and sounded like the choir in the opening few measures of the Lion King's Circle of Life (I don't mean that as a compliment).
But the thing is that the caliber of talent on the show this season is amazing. If need be, I could make a good case for about seven of these groups to win the entire show because they are legitimately the best at what they do without those cases being mutually exclusive.
In no particular order:
1. BYU Vocal Point (finished 5th)-Vocal Point deserves to win because they were arguably the best group at clearing the hurdles created by the wide range of genres. They also have the sharpest, most finely tuned arrangements out of any group and no one can touch them in terms of choreography. The reasoning from Shaun Stockman for their dismissal this past week was that they didn't have a star personality. I call BS on that. Aside from the edgy rock-tailored voices of McKay Crockett and Ross Welch, I thought Jake Hunsaker had the best voice on the show.
And keep in mind, I'm defending them to the death without being sure if I even like them as people. It's not the Mormon thing, but they seem either whipped by their girlfriends and wives or strangely overeager to ensure us of their heterosexuality. In the worst incident of this, their introductory video has one guy stating out of nowhere (I am not making this up) "Yeah, we really like girls, kissing girls also." Then he demonstrates his girl-kissing prowess by leaning down to a girl on the quad and kissing her (I hope that was his girlfriend and it's not a standing mandate at BYU that all girls must be on the ready in case Ben wants to kiss them).
2. North Shore (finished tied for 9th): Aside from being true masters at what they do from the standpoint of time spent on their craft, they are vitally important because they represent what is a lost art and despite the opinion of the judges who felt they looked dated on the "Power of Love," they succesfully take their old-school sensibility on pop songs. Not to mention, "Talk of the Town" coasted to the finals last year without putting an ounce of effort into modifying their style to accommodate different genres. "North Shore" was full of personality, humility, and appeared to be much more hard-working.
3. Delilah (finished 6th): A case can be made that Delilah is the best all-female a capella group ever assembled. Aside from the fact that this legitimate blogger thinks so, it makes sense considering you had judges scour the country for the best a capella groups in the country and this all-star super group is comprised of the best females from those groups. So if that's not good enough, than the judges might as well ban women from singing together and institute Sharia law. I mean, honestly, what more did these girls have to do? Yes, a couple of their performances had some pitch problems, but if I'm arguing whether they had the potential to win the entire show and not shame the Sing-Off brand, then yes. You can also make a case for them to win based on the sheer number of tear-inducing performances. They had two or three performances that floored the judges.
4. Afro-Blue (still in the final 4): In terms of musicianship, they are a step above the rest. Their music is indisputably solid, enjoyable and produced those "musical orgasms" (Nicole's term not mine) that Committed evoked out of Shawn last year. They have a deep bench, amazing vocalists (Christine Dashielle and Danielle Withers among them) and an ability to sound out the 7ths and 9ths in songs to tinge the chords with jazz medleys.
5. Urban Method (still in the final 4): Despite being pigeonholed as "the group with the rapper," Urban Method is strong enough as a group, that the judges deservedly have been hailing them all competition. They have a deep bench of great soloists, an excellent amount of cohesiveness for a group that just got together, and and a riduculously well-produced sound. They also might be able to sell more records among non a-capella fans better than anyone else considering introducing rap into the genre could catch people's attention.
6. Pentatonix (still in the final 4): They will likely win it all, so I shouldn't need too big of an argument here. They are highly innovative with their arrangements, they are fresh, and they produce an incredible amount of sound for just five people. The lead soloist Scott Hoying is like a male Whitney Houston but the group has an intuitive ability to change off solos when one of the other singers is better suited.
7. Sonos (finished tied for 11th with Kinfolk 9): Urban Method blogged that they listen to their record all the time and Scott Hoying of front-runner Pentatonix says "they're who we want to be." So if the point of this competition is making a record and building a following, what does it say about your group that one of the groups is already buying your CD and the winning group wants to emulate you? Hell, I even bought music from the Sonos on itunes. The Sonos are otherworldly and are right up there with Pentatonix and Afro-Blue in terms of creativity when it comes to approaching songs. They only had five people but so do the Pentatonix and I'm sure they're talented enough to have worked out those harmony quirks if given the chance. The judges acted as if succeeding as a five-person a capella group was impossible.
The Dartmouth Aires, on the other hand, are entirely unremarkable to me (although I will concede their Queen performance was phenomenal). I've come to accept, however, that I'm in a small minority from my experience scouring the blogosphere and conversing with others on message boards indicates that people seem to very much like this group for legitimate reasons.
Now, I acknowledge that I have a more limited ability to analyze choral music and express that analysis than 90% of the people I discuss the show with, I could still argue that the Dartmouth Aires don't have what it takes to win it. To me, they're indistinguishable from the hundreds of 15-memberish all-male collegiate a capella groups from the country that rarely have any geographical reach beyond their campus and the schools where they tour. If I went to Boston University or Harvard or Brown, why would I consider buying a Dartmouth CD when I could get a similar sounding a capella CD from a group on my campus?
In order to make the case that they're champions, you'd have to make a convincing case that they're so much better than the ungodly number of a capella groups, that they could significantly sell records. Anyone have any idea how much Aires sell right now?
In the meantime, the Dartmouth Aires are eliminating groups who legitimately could win the competition and that I personally like.
So while I didn't originally have anything personal against the Aires, it's gotten to become so. Case in point: One of the Aires has a very interesting wavy hair style (I believe his name is Clark). I used to think "hmmm, that's an interesting hair style." Now whenever I see Clark's hair, I think "that's a very stupid hairstyle." His hair style hasn't changed at all, but that's the inexplicable effect the Aires are having on me.
It's partially because I watch the show week after week and seeing this injustice committed over and over builds up that resentment.
It's also partially because I feel like everyone I talk to about the show is ignoring the mediocrity of the Aires when they have debates over whether Delilah or Afro-Blue or Urban Method should have been eliminated in a certain week. For me, everyone else in the top 7 or 8 are so amazing that if the Aires were out of the competition, it would be nothing but a win-win-win-win-win-win situation.
To the show's credit, my anger at Clark's haircut and everything else behind these 15 groups is because the show is doing a good job of building emotional attachment between me and the different groups.
For example, the similarly-structured Yellow Jackets of the University of Rochester might also have some of the same weaknesses as the Aires. However, they had an eagerness and likability that won me over. So it would only be natural that if every group had an emotional connection to me that grew week after week.
I'd feel strongly in the opposite direction towards the one group that I originally was apathetic to.
So, my apologies to the Dartmouth Aires and Clark's wavy haircut (which I still want to believe is a good haircut) for the inexplicable hatred I've come to feel. I'm not a hater of any of you and think you're perfectly pleasant people. It's just that reality TV has made me that way.
*As I wrote about the Whiffenpoofs a year ago, sometimes those intro videos can rub me the wrong way. I had a similar problem with the Del Tones of the University of Delaware. They were self-admittedly the fourth best a capella group at the University of Delaware and felt that they should be among the top 16 groups in the nation? Also, members suffering from home sickness when they first get to college and being concerned about making friends (yeah, that's pretty much everybody in the first two weeks of college) is really not much of an emotional hook
If you enjoyed this write-up, check out my internet column.
Wednesday, November 09, 2011
South Park's Butter episodes
My latest article at Examiner.com
It wasn't until several years after the show had become a cult hit and I heard my fair share of my teenage peers doing Cartman imitations that I first watched an episode of "South Park."
As for whether I am a fan, sort of. Sometimes the show's gross-out humor and juvenille tendencies can be a little too high for my tolerance, but their current events parodies can sometimes be impressively sharp.
I did recently started to notice that every single episode starring Butters is a home run to me. I have no idea what the general consensus is over which episodes are great and which aren't great, but to me Butters episodes seem to be drawn from an almost entirely different and better show. Butters episodes are great comedies of errors. The kid is too sweet and innocent to understand the world around him and his parents look absolutely awful in retrospect. I even think it's a good satire on alpha-level parents in general and it fits into the whole theme of the show really well. That theme is that fourth graders are the sanest people in society and as you grow into adulthood, you don't get smarter but rather just screw everything up through overcomplication.
A show that was centered around Butters would wear thin pretty quickly, but as it is, South Park knows how to use the character to good effect.
It wasn't until several years after the show had become a cult hit and I heard my fair share of my teenage peers doing Cartman imitations that I first watched an episode of "South Park."
As for whether I am a fan, sort of. Sometimes the show's gross-out humor and juvenille tendencies can be a little too high for my tolerance, but their current events parodies can sometimes be impressively sharp.
I did recently started to notice that every single episode starring Butters is a home run to me. I have no idea what the general consensus is over which episodes are great and which aren't great, but to me Butters episodes seem to be drawn from an almost entirely different and better show. Butters episodes are great comedies of errors. The kid is too sweet and innocent to understand the world around him and his parents look absolutely awful in retrospect. I even think it's a good satire on alpha-level parents in general and it fits into the whole theme of the show really well. That theme is that fourth graders are the sanest people in society and as you grow into adulthood, you don't get smarter but rather just screw everything up through overcomplication.
A show that was centered around Butters would wear thin pretty quickly, but as it is, South Park knows how to use the character to good effect.
Sunday, November 06, 2011
Allen Gregory and dislikable characters
Allen Gregory-The show features Jonah Hill as a 7-year old boy genius who, despite
having lobbied for fuel cell technology on Capitol Hill and having a
circle of friends that includes Sandy Bullock, quickly becomes an
ordinary outcast when he transfers to a new school.
I tend to give a fairly generous bye to anything appearing on TV that either looks remotely entertaining even if it might have some rough spots. Even if a show isn't entertaining me in the moment, I might be intrigued because it has a solid enough framework. In this case, you can envision a network of characters or scenarios in the case that if the writing got sharper it wouldn't be very hard for the show to hit its stride. Anyone who has watched the woeful first season of either "Parks and Recreation" and "American Dad" would know what I'm talking about.
"Allen Gregory" is a very rare case of the opposite. Despite having the ability to knock jokes out of the park here and there, the show is held back immensely by its framework. These are ultimately unlikable characters that we don't want to spend time with.
It's true that some shows succeed immensely behind unlikeable characters with few redeeming qualities, but that's because they're interesting or inhabit an interesting enough world.
Allen Gregory had promise to be interesting because of its tension. It would be like if Stewie on "Family Guy" were ever confronted with the reality that maybe he wasn't one of the world's smartest and most charismatic people and forced to deal with that reality alongside other kids who could see right through him everyday. "Gregory" doesn't capitalize on that because the main character rarely acknowledges reality and there isn't a strong presence of the characters on the show who stand to prove him otherwise.
For example, his teacher Gina Wintrhop (a faaaar more ideal love interest than the 60-year old Principal Gottlieb who induces more of a gross-out effect than anything else) is an excellent character and would be a great foil because she only cares about Allen Gregory to the extent that he interferes with her attempts to run a classroom. Unfortunately, the interaction between the two is very limited.
The end result? The main conflicts (and potential for comedic tension) aren't dealt with in any interesting or meaty way. A typical scenario on this show is Allen being given a swirlie, passing it off as something that he voluntarily chose to do and being enabled in his behavior by his dad and a school superintendant who appreciates the money from the Gregory-DeLongpree name too much. Not much fun.
Another major problem is that not only is Allen Gregory delusional and emotionally abusive to those around him, but so is his biological dad (voiced by French Stuart). The father character is so morally backwards that his back story (yet to be fully explained) is that he coerced a straight man with a wife and kids to be his husband (sex included).
The end result of this is that the scenes with the family of four have a sort of weird dynamic where two people are the family scapegoat and the dialogue just doesn't flow as well. It's not convincing that two people would be able to have so much power that they can intimidate the other two into into just being quiet scapegoats.
It works much better if you have three or more people and one guy who's the punching back. Most shows employ this method (see Meg on "Family Guy", Jerry on "Parks and Recreation", Kimmy Gibbler on "Full House", Roy Biggins on "Wings").
Will Allen Gregory be able to right its wrongs with a few character tweaks? It might not have enough time to do so. Besides, if it gets cancelled, it would be a deserving move. Still, while it's on the air, there's always a chance.
I tend to give a fairly generous bye to anything appearing on TV that either looks remotely entertaining even if it might have some rough spots. Even if a show isn't entertaining me in the moment, I might be intrigued because it has a solid enough framework. In this case, you can envision a network of characters or scenarios in the case that if the writing got sharper it wouldn't be very hard for the show to hit its stride. Anyone who has watched the woeful first season of either "Parks and Recreation" and "American Dad" would know what I'm talking about.
"Allen Gregory" is a very rare case of the opposite. Despite having the ability to knock jokes out of the park here and there, the show is held back immensely by its framework. These are ultimately unlikable characters that we don't want to spend time with.
It's true that some shows succeed immensely behind unlikeable characters with few redeeming qualities, but that's because they're interesting or inhabit an interesting enough world.
Allen Gregory had promise to be interesting because of its tension. It would be like if Stewie on "Family Guy" were ever confronted with the reality that maybe he wasn't one of the world's smartest and most charismatic people and forced to deal with that reality alongside other kids who could see right through him everyday. "Gregory" doesn't capitalize on that because the main character rarely acknowledges reality and there isn't a strong presence of the characters on the show who stand to prove him otherwise.
For example, his teacher Gina Wintrhop (a faaaar more ideal love interest than the 60-year old Principal Gottlieb who induces more of a gross-out effect than anything else) is an excellent character and would be a great foil because she only cares about Allen Gregory to the extent that he interferes with her attempts to run a classroom. Unfortunately, the interaction between the two is very limited.
The end result? The main conflicts (and potential for comedic tension) aren't dealt with in any interesting or meaty way. A typical scenario on this show is Allen being given a swirlie, passing it off as something that he voluntarily chose to do and being enabled in his behavior by his dad and a school superintendant who appreciates the money from the Gregory-DeLongpree name too much. Not much fun.
Another major problem is that not only is Allen Gregory delusional and emotionally abusive to those around him, but so is his biological dad (voiced by French Stuart). The father character is so morally backwards that his back story (yet to be fully explained) is that he coerced a straight man with a wife and kids to be his husband (sex included).
The end result of this is that the scenes with the family of four have a sort of weird dynamic where two people are the family scapegoat and the dialogue just doesn't flow as well. It's not convincing that two people would be able to have so much power that they can intimidate the other two into into just being quiet scapegoats.
It works much better if you have three or more people and one guy who's the punching back. Most shows employ this method (see Meg on "Family Guy", Jerry on "Parks and Recreation", Kimmy Gibbler on "Full House", Roy Biggins on "Wings").
Will Allen Gregory be able to right its wrongs with a few character tweaks? It might not have enough time to do so. Besides, if it gets cancelled, it would be a deserving move. Still, while it's on the air, there's always a chance.
Friday, October 21, 2011
Fall Preview III: Up All Night, Prime Suspect, Terranova and the topic of originality
Up All Night-I am about as interested in this TV show as I am listening to some couple at a family reunion showing me baby photos and talking all about the cute little boy. Yes, I understand this show inverts that notion and explores how parenthood can be surprisingly difficult but that's not exactly news either.
Personally, I would much rather see Will Arnett taking creative risks with Mitch Hurwitz ("Running Wilde" is just on hiatus #Holdingout), even if the results aren't entirely satisfying. Arnett just feels creatively neutered here in generic sitcomland.
If the show is going to be this generic, my sensibilities might be less offended if a laugh track were put in. As it stands, the single camera format communicates to me that the show's creators think that what they're doing is edgy.
The show breaks from the A-premise occasionally with a B-premise that centers around new mom Christina Applegate as a production assistant at an Oprahesque talk show. Oprah is predictably played by Maya Rudolph (although it's nice to see her on TV again). The show would be better served by devoting more time to this world, except for the fact that you could then criticize "Up All Night" for being a lesser clone of "30 Rock" or the film "Knocked Up."
I hear other critics being quick to praise this, but the show doesn't show much promise to me.
Prime Suspect-Just like comedy, TV dramas like to play it safe. They stick to the same kind of professions for their characters (doctors, lawyers, and cops, oh my!) and emulate the style of other successful shows in that format. These shows are commonly referred to as "procedurals."
Procedurals create a marketing paradox of sorts: You don't want to advertise yourself as being entirely different from the other cop/lawyer/doctor shows but you don't want to make it look like the writer simply cut and pasted a script of Grey's Anatomy and just changed the names around.
What they usually do to navigate that different/same dichotomy is to present themselves as the same concept with edgier characters. The start of this trend might have been "The Closer" which presented itself as (imagine Don LaFontaine saying it) "A cop show..featuring a detective who's pretty, female, and tough and if that weren't enough, she has a southern accent."
Look at Prime Suspect's promotional materials on the NBC website:
"The series stars Maria Bello ("A History of Violence") as tough-as-nails NYPD homicide Detective Jane Timoney, an outsider who has just transferred to a new squad where her new colleagues already dislike her. Jane is confident and focused - and also rude, abrupt and occasionally reckless. She has her vices, and rumors of a questionable past follow her everywhere - but at the end of the day, she's an instinctively brilliant cop who can't be distracted from the only important thing: the prime suspect."
Mario Bello's Jane Timoney is far from the first or last character to copy the same sets of attributes of another successful character. USA Network has built a factory of shows modeled on Monk: Exiled [Profession: spy, doctor, cop, lawyer, investigator, white collar worker] who has [obsessive compulsive disorder/too much of a conscience/a crazy dad who scarred him/an unknown enemy in the CIA who burned him] which prevents him from entering his profession in the mainstream, so he must resort to doing his job on a freelance basis outside of the establishment while discovering [the identity of his wife's killer/how to build a better relationship with his dad/how to connect to his brother and find love again/the identity of the man who burnt him] so he can be complete again.
Ultimately, "Prime Suspect" exists so that you can pass an hour in front of the TV without expending too much brain power. It's like eating a protein bar in lieu of a homecooked meal (for this analogy to work, I'm suggesting the goal here is eating a hearty and tasty meal and not a nutritional goal. The protein bar could very well be more healthy for you than the meal).
Terra Nova, on the other hand, has an ambitious concept. That's already a step up from a procedural. The show initially takes place in the year 2149 where the planet has been sufficiently ravaged by environmental destruction due to the pressures of overpopulation. The frontier in this show isn't space but time. A portal is discovered in space-time that allows people to travel back several million years to the Mesozoic Era where our protagonist family goes to begin a new life. The theme of redemption is especially fitting for the father, a former cop who went to prison for overpopulating the planet (A wonder Lionel Richie hasn't already been arrested for this *rimshot*) (the max in this universe is two kids, he had three. Why the mother didn't also go to prison, I'm not sure).
With this blog post centering around the discussion of procedurals and originality, I find two things ironic about the dad figure. First, he's a former cop and in one of the three episodes I've seen him in, he's solving a murder. Second, the character is played by Jason O'Mara who's credits have consisted largely of procedural shows: "Life on Mars" (although that show did have a time-travelling twist), "In Justice," and "The Agency." If my thesis is that procedurals are bad for TV, I'd have to add a corollary that while it's bad for TV viewers, it's financially the opposite for the networks so it is touch to avoid getting a high-concept sci-fi show like this on the air without working in elements of a procedural.
Somewhat. It's family-centered but doesn't have a very strong family. Of the three children, middle child Maddy (Naomi Scott) seems the strongest so far. She's charming on screen and in terms of plot dynamics, she's believably inquisitive which can add tension in plots. In one episode in particular, Maddy was an effective Nancy Drew character. Other than her, the younger child doesn't have much to do except be cute and precious and the older child (Landon Liboiron) is the typical rebellious son who exposes his father's weaknesses.
What is intriguing is the concept, but I hope the show picks up the pace in terms of captivating plots and makes the family element more exciting.
Personally, I would much rather see Will Arnett taking creative risks with Mitch Hurwitz ("Running Wilde" is just on hiatus #Holdingout), even if the results aren't entirely satisfying. Arnett just feels creatively neutered here in generic sitcomland.
If the show is going to be this generic, my sensibilities might be less offended if a laugh track were put in. As it stands, the single camera format communicates to me that the show's creators think that what they're doing is edgy.
The show breaks from the A-premise occasionally with a B-premise that centers around new mom Christina Applegate as a production assistant at an Oprahesque talk show. Oprah is predictably played by Maya Rudolph (although it's nice to see her on TV again). The show would be better served by devoting more time to this world, except for the fact that you could then criticize "Up All Night" for being a lesser clone of "30 Rock" or the film "Knocked Up."
I hear other critics being quick to praise this, but the show doesn't show much promise to me.
Prime Suspect-Just like comedy, TV dramas like to play it safe. They stick to the same kind of professions for their characters (doctors, lawyers, and cops, oh my!) and emulate the style of other successful shows in that format. These shows are commonly referred to as "procedurals."
Procedurals create a marketing paradox of sorts: You don't want to advertise yourself as being entirely different from the other cop/lawyer/doctor shows but you don't want to make it look like the writer simply cut and pasted a script of Grey's Anatomy and just changed the names around.
What they usually do to navigate that different/same dichotomy is to present themselves as the same concept with edgier characters. The start of this trend might have been "The Closer" which presented itself as (imagine Don LaFontaine saying it) "A cop show..featuring a detective who's pretty, female, and tough and if that weren't enough, she has a southern accent."
Look at Prime Suspect's promotional materials on the NBC website:
"The series stars Maria Bello ("A History of Violence") as tough-as-nails NYPD homicide Detective Jane Timoney, an outsider who has just transferred to a new squad where her new colleagues already dislike her. Jane is confident and focused - and also rude, abrupt and occasionally reckless. She has her vices, and rumors of a questionable past follow her everywhere - but at the end of the day, she's an instinctively brilliant cop who can't be distracted from the only important thing: the prime suspect."
Mario Bello's Jane Timoney is far from the first or last character to copy the same sets of attributes of another successful character. USA Network has built a factory of shows modeled on Monk: Exiled [Profession: spy, doctor, cop, lawyer, investigator, white collar worker] who has [obsessive compulsive disorder/too much of a conscience/a crazy dad who scarred him/an unknown enemy in the CIA who burned him] which prevents him from entering his profession in the mainstream, so he must resort to doing his job on a freelance basis outside of the establishment while discovering [the identity of his wife's killer/how to build a better relationship with his dad/how to connect to his brother and find love again/the identity of the man who burnt him] so he can be complete again.
Ultimately, "Prime Suspect" exists so that you can pass an hour in front of the TV without expending too much brain power. It's like eating a protein bar in lieu of a homecooked meal (for this analogy to work, I'm suggesting the goal here is eating a hearty and tasty meal and not a nutritional goal. The protein bar could very well be more healthy for you than the meal).
Terra Nova, on the other hand, has an ambitious concept. That's already a step up from a procedural. The show initially takes place in the year 2149 where the planet has been sufficiently ravaged by environmental destruction due to the pressures of overpopulation. The frontier in this show isn't space but time. A portal is discovered in space-time that allows people to travel back several million years to the Mesozoic Era where our protagonist family goes to begin a new life. The theme of redemption is especially fitting for the father, a former cop who went to prison for overpopulating the planet (A wonder Lionel Richie hasn't already been arrested for this *rimshot*) (the max in this universe is two kids, he had three. Why the mother didn't also go to prison, I'm not sure).
With this blog post centering around the discussion of procedurals and originality, I find two things ironic about the dad figure. First, he's a former cop and in one of the three episodes I've seen him in, he's solving a murder. Second, the character is played by Jason O'Mara who's credits have consisted largely of procedural shows: "Life on Mars" (although that show did have a time-travelling twist), "In Justice," and "The Agency." If my thesis is that procedurals are bad for TV, I'd have to add a corollary that while it's bad for TV viewers, it's financially the opposite for the networks so it is touch to avoid getting a high-concept sci-fi show like this on the air without working in elements of a procedural.
Somewhat. It's family-centered but doesn't have a very strong family. Of the three children, middle child Maddy (Naomi Scott) seems the strongest so far. She's charming on screen and in terms of plot dynamics, she's believably inquisitive which can add tension in plots. In one episode in particular, Maddy was an effective Nancy Drew character. Other than her, the younger child doesn't have much to do except be cute and precious and the older child (Landon Liboiron) is the typical rebellious son who exposes his father's weaknesses.
What is intriguing is the concept, but I hope the show picks up the pace in terms of captivating plots and makes the family element more exciting.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Fall Preview II: Pan Am and Playboy Club
My Latest Article at Examiner.com: The Expanding Dumping Ground of Films
Two Shows which Often Get Reviewed Together:
Playboy Club:A lot of the special interest groups you might expect protested this ill-fated show and as strange as it may sound, I put myself in that category to an extent. I find any celebration of Hugh Heffner as a creative genius to be misplaced and tasteless. Heffner was a guy (even though he's not yet dead, I feel he's best discussed in the past tense) who lived out his sexual fetishes because he's rich and because (for a variety of reasons unknown to me because I'm not inclined to research it) he was able to get away with it. I don't think there is anything notable in that. There are a lot of guys who'd live Hugh's decadent lifestyle if they had the money and could get away with it too.
In short, it's hard to be invested in a series based on the debate over whether the Playboy Club was good or bad for society, when you just don't care either way.
So if you strip all that way, this is essentially a workplace drama (albeit a very odd workplace) and a period piece set in the '60s and not too bad of one at that.
With the exception of the male lead, who is so obviously trying to emulate Jon Hamm's stoic blankness, the characters were fairly interesting. Amber Head as the novice bunny Maureen is pretty decent casting and through her, one can see this show as a fairly gripping girl-trying-to-make-it on her own story. Laura Benanti, the playboy bunny with the most seniority, is a formidable foil to Maureen, but she's a little broadly drawn. Why does she care if the playboy bunnies hook up with her clients? If she has such an accute business sense, why does she want to be head bunny and sing up on stage, rather than remain behind the scenes or just start her own nightclub?
The sexual tension and relationship dynamics between the characters are surpriginsly interesting to me, since sex is present everywhere and in everything and I assume the guys have such easy access to it here. How do you define a menaingful sexual interaction or even a meaningful flirtation when it's already a paid commodity and accessible?
The pilot and the next couple episodes wisely focused on something that had nothing to do with the Playboy Club (since that doesn't interest me): Maureen accidentally murdered a mob boss and she has to cover it up.
Pan Am:
No matter how many times I've been on a plane, the experience of flying still remains glamorous for me and that even includes waiting in the terminal and going through security.
With that in mind, it's hard to dislike this show and I suspect a lot of people will latch on to that sense of glamour. Despite using an actual plane, the production values don't strike me as particularly amazing. It might be just me but the score seems too Hallmarkish, the plane's a little too well-lit, Berlin looked like it was shot in Toronto.
If the show is anything like the first and third episode I saw, then the show's format is as follows: The first act is the flight's outbound flight from JFK, the second act is the flight back to JFK, the third through fifth acts (the meat of the plot) consist of flashbacks to what the girls were up to on their layover, and the finale is the plot resolving back on the plane as they're landing at JFK.
Christina Ricci, the biggest name in the ensemble, plays an attractive character in Maggie. She seems to be into the countercultural movement and a sort of emblem of the free-spirited decade. It's because of her spunky and unpredictable nature that I enjoyed the subplot of her trying to meet Kennedy. I think we can all relate with similar experiences trying to meet famous people.
As much as stewardesses (particularly of old) were associated with sex symbols, the Berlin episode wisely makes a couple moves to show these woman as empowered but not dislikable. Maggie flirts and befriends a journalist in order to get into a press conference but makes it clear she won't trade sex for a front row seat. Also, newbie Laura (Margot Robbie) rejects the advances of one of the co-pilots.
The episodes provide an excuse for a hodgepodge of stories about these characters in a time and place which hasn't been particularly disappointing so far. More than a number of other shows, I do question how many plots they can derive out of this show, but if shows like "Chuck" or "Gilligan's Island" can stretch a thin premise, I'll wait and see.
One slightly awkward part of the third episode was how lightly it treated the plot wherin French stewardess Colette (Karine Vanasse) comes to terms with her childhood in World War II. This should have been "Sophie's Choice"-level drama and didn't fall short by a lot, but still. Likewise, when Kate (Kelli Garner) makes a life-threatening mistake in her espionage activities, I can't imagine the show will all of a sudden turn into 24.
All in all, a pretty decent show worth checking out.
Coming Up: Up All Night, New Girl, H8ters, 2 1/2 Men and possibly Murhy's Law
Ricci as Maggie is already a fairly well-developed character
Two Shows which Often Get Reviewed Together:
Playboy Club:A lot of the special interest groups you might expect protested this ill-fated show and as strange as it may sound, I put myself in that category to an extent. I find any celebration of Hugh Heffner as a creative genius to be misplaced and tasteless. Heffner was a guy (even though he's not yet dead, I feel he's best discussed in the past tense) who lived out his sexual fetishes because he's rich and because (for a variety of reasons unknown to me because I'm not inclined to research it) he was able to get away with it. I don't think there is anything notable in that. There are a lot of guys who'd live Hugh's decadent lifestyle if they had the money and could get away with it too.
In short, it's hard to be invested in a series based on the debate over whether the Playboy Club was good or bad for society, when you just don't care either way.
So if you strip all that way, this is essentially a workplace drama (albeit a very odd workplace) and a period piece set in the '60s and not too bad of one at that.
With the exception of the male lead, who is so obviously trying to emulate Jon Hamm's stoic blankness, the characters were fairly interesting. Amber Head as the novice bunny Maureen is pretty decent casting and through her, one can see this show as a fairly gripping girl-trying-to-make-it on her own story. Laura Benanti, the playboy bunny with the most seniority, is a formidable foil to Maureen, but she's a little broadly drawn. Why does she care if the playboy bunnies hook up with her clients? If she has such an accute business sense, why does she want to be head bunny and sing up on stage, rather than remain behind the scenes or just start her own nightclub?
The sexual tension and relationship dynamics between the characters are surpriginsly interesting to me, since sex is present everywhere and in everything and I assume the guys have such easy access to it here. How do you define a menaingful sexual interaction or even a meaningful flirtation when it's already a paid commodity and accessible?
The pilot and the next couple episodes wisely focused on something that had nothing to do with the Playboy Club (since that doesn't interest me): Maureen accidentally murdered a mob boss and she has to cover it up.
Pan Am:
No matter how many times I've been on a plane, the experience of flying still remains glamorous for me and that even includes waiting in the terminal and going through security.
With that in mind, it's hard to dislike this show and I suspect a lot of people will latch on to that sense of glamour. Despite using an actual plane, the production values don't strike me as particularly amazing. It might be just me but the score seems too Hallmarkish, the plane's a little too well-lit, Berlin looked like it was shot in Toronto.
If the show is anything like the first and third episode I saw, then the show's format is as follows: The first act is the flight's outbound flight from JFK, the second act is the flight back to JFK, the third through fifth acts (the meat of the plot) consist of flashbacks to what the girls were up to on their layover, and the finale is the plot resolving back on the plane as they're landing at JFK.
Christina Ricci, the biggest name in the ensemble, plays an attractive character in Maggie. She seems to be into the countercultural movement and a sort of emblem of the free-spirited decade. It's because of her spunky and unpredictable nature that I enjoyed the subplot of her trying to meet Kennedy. I think we can all relate with similar experiences trying to meet famous people.
As much as stewardesses (particularly of old) were associated with sex symbols, the Berlin episode wisely makes a couple moves to show these woman as empowered but not dislikable. Maggie flirts and befriends a journalist in order to get into a press conference but makes it clear she won't trade sex for a front row seat. Also, newbie Laura (Margot Robbie) rejects the advances of one of the co-pilots.
The episodes provide an excuse for a hodgepodge of stories about these characters in a time and place which hasn't been particularly disappointing so far. More than a number of other shows, I do question how many plots they can derive out of this show, but if shows like "Chuck" or "Gilligan's Island" can stretch a thin premise, I'll wait and see.
One slightly awkward part of the third episode was how lightly it treated the plot wherin French stewardess Colette (Karine Vanasse) comes to terms with her childhood in World War II. This should have been "Sophie's Choice"-level drama and didn't fall short by a lot, but still. Likewise, when Kate (Kelli Garner) makes a life-threatening mistake in her espionage activities, I can't imagine the show will all of a sudden turn into 24.
All in all, a pretty decent show worth checking out.
Coming Up: Up All Night, New Girl, H8ters, 2 1/2 Men and possibly Murhy's Law
Ricci as Maggie is already a fairly well-developed character
Monday, October 17, 2011
Fall TV Preview Pt. I: Last Man Standing, 2 Broke Girls, Free Agents
Last Man Standing
My main preconception for this show was that its reason for existence was that TV executives feel the universe is severely misaligned if anyone who has ever helmed a successful TV show ever isn't currently on network television (see Bill Cosby, Jeff Tambour, Bob Newhart, Lucille Ball, etc.) in some form or another.
I also felt that while Home Improvement entertained me as a 10-year old, it probably would not hold up to a grown-up audience which, for better or worse, I am now a part of.
However, ten minutes of this show changed my opinion pretty quickly. I now think that there's always room for a by-the-numbers family comedy in the prime time schedule (Modern Family is too clever and therefore disqualified form this category) and even if he's not treading in vastly dangerous waters with this familiar role, Tim Allen is giving me what I need.
It's odd that both this show and "Home Improvement" have Tim Allen playing roles of highly empowered middle men: They both have hiring and firing power but answer to a company owner. On "Home Improvement", Allen was the host of his own TV show but his boss was the head of the Binford Tool Company. Why a TV show would be owned by a single sponsor is beyond me. That would mean that every Tool Time commercial ad would be for Binford tools like the "George Burns and Grace Allen Show" had commercials and in-show promotions consist entirely of carnation milk.
The show is an interesting twist on "Home Improvement" in that Allen has three girls instead of boys. The dynamics are a little better this way with less of Allen's character revolving around his infections manliness and also has the benefit of positioning the mom (Nancy Travis) as less of a foil to be subverted (poor Patricia Richardson). The show has an even more interesting twist in that the oldest kid is a single mom. The show earns big points for downplaying this facet to her character rather than branding her as a Hester Prynne incarnate (Ellen Wernecke will be so proud of me for throwing in a literary reference!).
Lastly, the pilot episode seemed relevant to the economic climate of today with Tim Allen's job in danger. Here's hoping the show maintains that sense of instability. That would be an interesting ride.
[Update: Just have to mention that the show does not hold up after that many episodes. Quit watching this one about three weeks later]
Two Broke Girls:
My review for this show (after two episodes) will be short and simple, because there's not much to the show:
It really hearkens back to old-timey sitcoms which I would loosely translate as a TV show with little complexity in its humor.
Most good sitcoms today are loaded with multi-layered complexity with their jokes. Brick jokes, call backs, and running gags lead to punchlines that can take an entire episode to set up. In contrast, every laugh in a sitcom like "Two Broke Girls" never requires more than two lines of set up at the most (I didn't scientifically measure this, feel free to point out any counterexamples in the comments).
Still, while the jokes might not require me to focus on all 22 minutes but the story in the two episodes I watched were good enough to keep me glued.
I have to confess that because I didn't see the pilot, I'm not entirely sure why the rich heiress roommate is suddenly poor. No matter, the odd couple chemistry is sparking and the premise is a unique enough angle to induce my curiosity.
Besides anything with the wonderful Kat Dennings (from "Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist") is worth a glance. The ensemble is pretty strong except for restaurant employee Oleg who's an all-purpose source of ethnic humor. [Update: What was I thinking when I wrote this and praised the backup ensemble? The entire ensemble is awful although it's hard to react that negatively to Garrett Morris (one of the seven original cast members of SNL). The show's Chinese restaurant owner character is equally as bland as Oleg, and while it's terrific that the show was able to snag someone from the Christopher Guest theater company in Jennifer Coolidge, I've never seen such a capable comic actor stripped of any of their potential]
Free Agents
I'm not familiar with what direction this show took after the pilot (yes, I know it was cancelled), but the first episode had a sort of artificial slickness to it that came off as schwarmy (fair warning: that might not be a real word. Perhaps, it could be?).
I can't think of a plausible reason why characters in Hank Azaria's office are talking about sex so much (including the board meeting) except that the company is a manufacturer of sexual innuendo. To the show's credit, a later scene in which a board meeting is called just to discuss Alex's (Azaria's) date is so ridiculous, you have to think that they're in on the joke (my third lampshading reference in a row!).
The show is also a little guilty of overly stylized dialogue reminiscent of "Studio 60." While the characters aren't nearly as homogeneous as that disaster of a TV show, they're all on the same page in trying to be as uber-hip as they can at all times of the day. Alex's secretary (Natasha Leggero) is too hip to actually act in any helpful capacity to him as it interferes with her lifestyle of being rude and snarky.
Hank Azaria is about as good of a choice for this role as you can get. His age and level of attractiveness are about right for the degree of self-doubt that the character is written with.
It was somewhat jarring that he'd elicit such curiosity about his sex life. As a character actor, Azaria is the definition of someone who's sex life you're supposed to be apathetic to because he's sharing screen time with a handsome leading man like Brad Pitt or Orlando Bloom whom you're supposed to be thinking more of as a sexual being.
To further illustrate this point, let's try this hypothetical: Do you think when Paul Giamatti goes to a cocktail party, people want to hear all about his sexual escapades? Whether he's having sex or not, it's certainly not something that anyone would be interested in knowing, which is exactly why he gets cast in awkward dramedies or John Adams and other meaty character roles.
Kathryn Hahn (not really a well-known actress and liable to be confused with Catherine O'Hara) is just a tinge too witty (not as bad as the supporting players) as Helen, but she's not far from being a great lead. She pulls off some very honest and relatable moments and brings about the pilot's funniest moment when she vents out her frustration at a seemingly judgemental grocery store clerk.
Most importantly, the romance here makes sense for the characters. It was also a nice touch that the romance only started to feel genuine when Helen's independent woman persona crumbles in the third act.
My main preconception for this show was that its reason for existence was that TV executives feel the universe is severely misaligned if anyone who has ever helmed a successful TV show ever isn't currently on network television (see Bill Cosby, Jeff Tambour, Bob Newhart, Lucille Ball, etc.) in some form or another.
I also felt that while Home Improvement entertained me as a 10-year old, it probably would not hold up to a grown-up audience which, for better or worse, I am now a part of.
However, ten minutes of this show changed my opinion pretty quickly. I now think that there's always room for a by-the-numbers family comedy in the prime time schedule (Modern Family is too clever and therefore disqualified form this category) and even if he's not treading in vastly dangerous waters with this familiar role, Tim Allen is giving me what I need.
It's odd that both this show and "Home Improvement" have Tim Allen playing roles of highly empowered middle men: They both have hiring and firing power but answer to a company owner. On "Home Improvement", Allen was the host of his own TV show but his boss was the head of the Binford Tool Company. Why a TV show would be owned by a single sponsor is beyond me. That would mean that every Tool Time commercial ad would be for Binford tools like the "George Burns and Grace Allen Show" had commercials and in-show promotions consist entirely of carnation milk.
The show is an interesting twist on "Home Improvement" in that Allen has three girls instead of boys. The dynamics are a little better this way with less of Allen's character revolving around his infections manliness and also has the benefit of positioning the mom (Nancy Travis) as less of a foil to be subverted (poor Patricia Richardson). The show has an even more interesting twist in that the oldest kid is a single mom. The show earns big points for downplaying this facet to her character rather than branding her as a Hester Prynne incarnate (Ellen Wernecke will be so proud of me for throwing in a literary reference!).
Lastly, the pilot episode seemed relevant to the economic climate of today with Tim Allen's job in danger. Here's hoping the show maintains that sense of instability. That would be an interesting ride.
[Update: Just have to mention that the show does not hold up after that many episodes. Quit watching this one about three weeks later]
Two Broke Girls:
My review for this show (after two episodes) will be short and simple, because there's not much to the show:
It really hearkens back to old-timey sitcoms which I would loosely translate as a TV show with little complexity in its humor.
Most good sitcoms today are loaded with multi-layered complexity with their jokes. Brick jokes, call backs, and running gags lead to punchlines that can take an entire episode to set up. In contrast, every laugh in a sitcom like "Two Broke Girls" never requires more than two lines of set up at the most (I didn't scientifically measure this, feel free to point out any counterexamples in the comments).
Still, while the jokes might not require me to focus on all 22 minutes but the story in the two episodes I watched were good enough to keep me glued.
I have to confess that because I didn't see the pilot, I'm not entirely sure why the rich heiress roommate is suddenly poor. No matter, the odd couple chemistry is sparking and the premise is a unique enough angle to induce my curiosity.
Besides anything with the wonderful Kat Dennings (from "Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist") is worth a glance. The ensemble is pretty strong except for restaurant employee Oleg who's an all-purpose source of ethnic humor. [Update: What was I thinking when I wrote this and praised the backup ensemble? The entire ensemble is awful although it's hard to react that negatively to Garrett Morris (one of the seven original cast members of SNL). The show's Chinese restaurant owner character is equally as bland as Oleg, and while it's terrific that the show was able to snag someone from the Christopher Guest theater company in Jennifer Coolidge, I've never seen such a capable comic actor stripped of any of their potential]
Free Agents
I'm not familiar with what direction this show took after the pilot (yes, I know it was cancelled), but the first episode had a sort of artificial slickness to it that came off as schwarmy (fair warning: that might not be a real word. Perhaps, it could be?).
I can't think of a plausible reason why characters in Hank Azaria's office are talking about sex so much (including the board meeting) except that the company is a manufacturer of sexual innuendo. To the show's credit, a later scene in which a board meeting is called just to discuss Alex's (Azaria's) date is so ridiculous, you have to think that they're in on the joke (my third lampshading reference in a row!).
The show is also a little guilty of overly stylized dialogue reminiscent of "Studio 60." While the characters aren't nearly as homogeneous as that disaster of a TV show, they're all on the same page in trying to be as uber-hip as they can at all times of the day. Alex's secretary (Natasha Leggero) is too hip to actually act in any helpful capacity to him as it interferes with her lifestyle of being rude and snarky.
Hank Azaria is about as good of a choice for this role as you can get. His age and level of attractiveness are about right for the degree of self-doubt that the character is written with.
It was somewhat jarring that he'd elicit such curiosity about his sex life. As a character actor, Azaria is the definition of someone who's sex life you're supposed to be apathetic to because he's sharing screen time with a handsome leading man like Brad Pitt or Orlando Bloom whom you're supposed to be thinking more of as a sexual being.
To further illustrate this point, let's try this hypothetical: Do you think when Paul Giamatti goes to a cocktail party, people want to hear all about his sexual escapades? Whether he's having sex or not, it's certainly not something that anyone would be interested in knowing, which is exactly why he gets cast in awkward dramedies or John Adams and other meaty character roles.
Kathryn Hahn (not really a well-known actress and liable to be confused with Catherine O'Hara) is just a tinge too witty (not as bad as the supporting players) as Helen, but she's not far from being a great lead. She pulls off some very honest and relatable moments and brings about the pilot's funniest moment when she vents out her frustration at a seemingly judgemental grocery store clerk.
Most importantly, the romance here makes sense for the characters. It was also a nice touch that the romance only started to feel genuine when Helen's independent woman persona crumbles in the third act.
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