Welcome to a new Wildcard Wednesday! This week, I’ve got another Sitcom Potpourri, featuring brief commentary on a few short-lived series and recommendations for appropriately reflective episodic samples. For this post, I’m looking at three flops from the 2010-2011 season that all promised to explore different types of romantic relationships juxtaposed in deliberate contrast — like we’ve seen, positionally on How I Met Your Mother via its cast configuration.
BETTER WITH YOU (September 2010 – May 2011, ABC)
Premise: A woman in a long-term unmarried relationship is surprised when her younger sister gets quickly engaged to her boyfriend of only a few weeks, much to their parents’ delight.
Cast: Joanna Garcia Swisher, Jennifer Finnigan, Josh Cooke, Jake Lacy, Kurt Fuller, Debra Jo Rupp
Writers: Shana Goldberg-Meehan, Greg Malins, Lon Zimmet & Dan Rubin, Kat Likkel & John Hoberg, Mathew Harawitz, Zachary Rosenblatt, Adam Chase, Margee Magee & Angeli Millan, Christopher Luccy, Eve Weston, Dan Holden
Thoughts: This multi-cam from a former Friends scribe purports to follow two sisters in different types of relationships. One is engaged after a few weeks with a baby on the way, and the other lives with her beau of nearly a decade without being married – while their very-married, more traditional parents want both daughters happily wed. The pilot is fun because the prospect of the younger sis hitting big romantic milestones ahead of her older sis, who’s purposely chosen to eschew them, is positioned as a conflict, with the latter feeling that her way of life is threatened by the former. This slightly high-concept narrative framework burns away fast though, and Better With You thereafter devolves into a standard two-couple show with a pair of funny parents on the side. But unlike the best of this type of sitcom, I don’t think its episodic stories actually do a good job of emphasizing the differences between the main relationships (even positionally), and so the ideas themselves feel like they don’t really indulge the intended situation, yielding instead stuff that we could see on any generic sitcom with an engaged pregnant couple. To wit, the characters themselves – while a few are temperamentally amusing – don’t jump-off-the-screen with great individuality either. In fact, nothing here is great or really unique outside of the pilot with that specific competitive angle.
Episode Count: 22 episodes produced and broadcast.
Episodes Seen: All 22.
Key Episode: #9: Better With Thanksgiving” (11/24/10)
Why: Outside the pilot, this entry best addresses the older sis’ choice not to marry her long-term guy, which is part of the originally premised conflict distinguishing the main characters and their relationships – the very thing this series purports to explore… and then doesn’t.
TRAFFIC LIGHT (February 2011 – May 2011, FOX)
Premise: Three guy friends have very different romantic lives.
Cast: David Denman, Nelson Franklin, Kris Marshall, Liza Lapira, Aya Cash
Writers: Bob Fisher, David King, D.J. Nash, Lesley Wake Webster, Amy Hubbs & Tony Dodds, Robin Shorr, Eric Siegel & Eric D. Wasserman, Donick Cary, David Hemingson, based on as Israeli series by Adir Miller (with one script originally written by Miller and Ran Sarig)
Thoughts: Traffic Light, adapted from an Israeli sitcom, reminds me of another short-lived show I covered a few months ago, Carpoolers, which was also a male-focused ensemble single-cam with characters in various types of relationships. But, frankly, Traffic Light reminds me of quite a few sitcoms from this era, like Rules Of Engagement and even How I Met Your Mother, which also includes a settled guy, a trying-to-settle guy, and a never-to-settle guy. We see all of that here, only per the trend as of late (e.g., in Carpoolers and Happy Endings), it’s suburban instead of urban. Also, the uniting principle – the slight conceptual framework used to provide a bit of premised distinction to this otherwise clichéd construct — is that these guys typically converse while in the car. No, they’re not carpooling together, as in that aforementioned comedy, but they’re usually heading to work in their separate cars, talking on the phone. It’s a slight wrinkle and it’s actually easier to justify and maintain. But, of course, that also doesn’t really provide much story unto itself – so this ends up being, like Carpoolers, a show that relies more on its low-concept elements, namely, its characters… well, theoretically. As is often the case with this type of show, the men are primarily distinguished by their positions within the ensemble — their relationship statuses — and not so much from personalized details. Of course, to be fair, the show never runs long enough to cultivate a lot of personalization. And it’s thus impossible to know if it could have improved. I think it’s always difficult when there’s no location helping to focus the action and guide story, but to that point, Traffic Light is like Carpoolers in that it has slightly better comic ideas than most flops. And the cast is pretty good – especially Nelson Franklin as the guy who’s just moved in with his girlfriend. He’s the most inherently distinctive performer here and he helps elevate Traffic Light ever so slightly from the otherwise generic crowd to which this series, suburban setting and car-talk angle be darned, otherwise belongs.
Episode Count: 13 episodes produced and broadcast.
Episodes Seen: All 13.
Key Episode: #2: “En Fuego” (02/15/11)
Why: Produced as the eighth episode after the pilot but bumped up to air the second week, this is the show’s funniest selection – with ideas that capably communicate the different stages of relational commitment experienced by the three men (which is the situation), chances for the entire cast to get together, and, most importantly, some laughs.
MAD LOVE (February 2011 – May 2011, CBS)
Premise: Two people fall in love after a meet-cute, but their friends don’t hit it off so fast.
Cast: Jason Biggs, Sarah Chalke, Judy Greer, Tyler Labine, Sarah Wright
Writers: Matt Tarses, Rob DesHotel, Adrian Wenner, Jared Miller, Corey Nickerson, Josh Malmuth, Leila Strachan, Rob Sheridan, Peter Begler
Thoughts: A two-couple rom-com multi-cam featuring two of Ted Mosby’s exes, Mad Love indeed feels like a companion to How I Met Your Mother, which sat next to it on CBS’ Monday schedule. There’s even weekly narration from a main character, setting up the basic premise of a couple contrast – one pair is madly in love and fated to be together, and the other is their best friends, who initially can’t stand each other, but as we’re told, will eventually find their way together as well. This isn’t a bad framework for an ensemble rom-com, especially because such a relationship focus could be character-driven. But the problem with Mad Love is that this setup needs stronger characters, particularly for the happy lovebirds, whose core difference from the battling secondary pair essentially renders them as relatively boring, while the supporting players with natural conflict are, duh, funnier. Obviously, more personal details that could help color story would have been beneficial here – and that’s the kind of stuff that’s discovered over time, of which the short-lived Mad Love never got. But I think there’s also a basic design flaw. Specifically, the couple that is madly in love needs to have inherent comedic/dramatic tension. That means there should be something making their pairing difficult, and ideally it should be related to their basic comic characterizations – i.e., they should be opposites. In contrast, the secondary pair, instead of being mismatched because they’re so unalike, maybe the reason they loathe each other is because they’re too alike. This tweak would make it so both couples have distinct ways to actually produce story and be funny, and it wouldn’t be so unbalanced in terms of conflict. And then additional quirks could help fuel episodic story as the run progresses. Accordingly, the show would be able to keep its basic premise and even the same perspective, but with more character-support in plot. As it stands here, Mad Love is a mediocrity that fails to live up to its potential, simply because it doesn’t do right by its leads.
Episode Count: 13 episodes produced and broadcast.
Episodes Seen: All 13.
Key Episode: #4: “Little Sister, Big City” (03/07/11)
Why: There’s conflict in the main relationship that, frankly, is circumstantial but could perhaps indicate differences in temperament (i.e., she’s uptight and he’s not) – which is a decent start to making them comedically viable. And with attention also called to the secondary couple’s dynamic as a supporting contrast, this feels a bit like a play to the premise… (all despite a clichéd logline about a visiting younger sister who sleeps with one of the other regulars).
Ultimately, I think you can comfortably forget all of the above. But if you want to read more of my thoughts on other (sometimes better) short-lived forgotten sitcoms, pick up my new book — Great American Sitcoms of the 1950s, available now!
Come back next week for another Wildcard! And stay tuned Tuesday for more Mother!