Welcome to a new Wildcard Wednesday! This week, I’ve got a pop-out post on an interesting single-season sitcom that I mentioned a few weeks ago in my coverage of The Big Bang Theory. I’m glad to finally find space to share a few thoughts on it here.
COMMITTED (January 2005 – March 2005, NBC)
Premise: Two weirdos meet by accident and then fall madly in love with each other.
Cast: Josh Cooke, Jennifer Finnigan, Darius McCrary, Tammy Lynn Michaels, Tom Poston, RonReaco Lee
Writers: Eileen Heisler & DeAnn Heline, Rob Bragin, Katy Ballard, Rodney Rothman, Bill Daly, Judah Miller & Murray Miller, Justin Spitzer
Thoughts: Committed is a couple-centric multi-camera rom-com about a pair of oddballs. They’re not nerds like Big Bang’s Sheldon and Amy, and they’re not explicitly dysfunctional like the folks on The Trouble With Normal. But they’re weird — walking collections of eccentricities that are generally off-putting to other potential paramours. She’s a fast-talking squeaky-voiced neurotic who lives with a “dying clown” in her closet. He’s an awkward over-thinking hoarder whose mother is in an institution. But together they click, and in the vein of Marty (or MTM’s We’ve Got Each Other), Committed follows the romance between people who normally wouldn’t exist in a romantic comedy. They’re also unusual leads for a network sitcom — they’d usually be the wacky peripheral players. Here, their two pals are the grounded sensible forces, balancing their “crazy” in a role reversal. This isn’t totally novel, but it does help the series stand out within this overcrowded rom-com subgenre. And Tom Poston as the “dying clown” is a bonus, embodying the show’s basic premised weirdness. However, I’m afraid I like the idea of Committed more than I actually like Committed. The series just doesn’t reliably explore its situation within weekly story. Specifically, the oddness of the two leads does not often make for conflict in their relationship, which is instead threatened (superficially) by an outside party, her “friend,” a schemer who plays upon social sympathy — he’s black and in a wheelchair — to undermine his rival. That can be amusing, but it’s not motivated by the two leads and how they’re defined in the premise… I get it; since the show is predicated on their unique compatibility, opposing them may seem counterintuitive. But the world is Committed’s oyster, for in defining them as eccentric, there are so many details that could lead to a clash, either because their idiosyncrasies are opposed, or merely because they’re just “weird” in different ways. So, if not macro issues, there should still be micro tension. What’s more, neither has had romantic success before because they’re both weird; surely that should lead to conflict as they, like Sheldon and Amy, try something new. If this series had found a way to explore this — its situation — in regular story, I would be calling Committed one of the best short-lived sitcoms of its era, not just a good idea.
Episode Count: 13 episodes produced and broadcast.
Episodes Seen: All 13.
Key Episodes: #1: “The Pilot Episode” (01/04/05)
#2: “The Return Of Todd Episode” (01/06/05)
#3: “The Apartment Episode” (01/11/05)
#9: “The Mother Episode” (02/15/05)
Why: The pilot sets up the situation and is thus the most explicitly clear-eyed about its potential, #2 is the best version of the common story template where the leading man’s romantic rival menaces him and indulges humor that delights in being politically incorrect, #3 is the best episodic example of one of the two leads’ potential weirdness making a relationship difficult, and #9 notably guests Valerie Harper as the guy’s mom, whom they visit in a mental institution.
Come back next week for a new Wildcard! And stay tuned Tuesday for more Big Bang!