Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Monday Night Comedy Roundup - 1/3/12

Monday nights are must-see light comedy night for me. (I say "light" to differentiate from super duper heavy-hitting comedy like 30 Rock, Parks & Recreation, and Community.) Starting with How I Met Your Mother (or, how I prefer to refer to it, "my friends that live in the box in my living room"), the new, snappy 2 Broke Girls and finishing with the fun and funny Mike & Molly.

How I Met Your Mother is like checking in with that group of people you used to hang out with: so familiar... you just pick up where you left off.  I haven't always liked the way they incorporate story lines just to drop them somewhat suddenly (i.e. no shot of Barney watching Robin on TV last night? Even when Kevin says "That's my girl!"? File that under 'Missed Opportunity' or "Hot Potato, Storyline Dropped Like a").  But I must say that the way the show has handled Marshall's father's death has been touching and realistic.  From the start, this story line was filled with shock, sadness, comedy, confusion and anger... a big ball of WTF.  I'm here to tell you that this is just like real life.  Last night's episode was no different.  Marshall visiting his dad's gravesite with a TV and tailgating supplies was on the surface, kind of goofy and could have been played for laughs only. But watching Marshall have his special time with his dad, watching the game, rehashing the New Year's Eve stories and ending up grilling burgers for lots of new cemetery friends and "neighbors",  the emotion came through, especially in the flashbacks to Marshall and his dad tailgating when Marshall was a kid. Roll in the Lilly pregnancy/daddy issues storyline and the more comedic, but no less inspiring Robin on TV storyline, and the just-for-laughs Puzzles Bar opening, and you have 30 minutes of well balanced jokes and fully felt emotion. A lesser show wouldn't have handled all this so deftly. Any comedy that can make me laugh and cry has it going on. (Full disclosure: I have been known to cry at On Star radio commercials, so shedding tears at the end of this episode of HIMYM is probably not surprising. But it truly was touching.)

2 Broke Girls is one of my new favorite "fluffy" comedies, if only because the plots are loosely staged around a series of funny one-liners.  I'm not watching it for any kind of fantastic acting or ground-breaking comedy, but the acting makes you care just enough to stay tuned and the zingy one-liners are just SO ZINGY.  It's like watching someone's (Whitney Cummings'?) stand-up routine acted out. Example: "Shame is overrated. Like Ke$ha. In fact, they should rename "shame" "Ke$hame". 'I just bought a Ke$sha album, I am so Ke$hamed." Good stuff!

Mike & Molly might be one of the cutest shows on TV right now.  That's not to say it's all sweet and rosey... they get down and dirty on this show too.  In a sea of wacky characters that make up the supporting cast (moms, sister, friends) the two lead characters of Mike and Molly (Billy Gardell and the incomparable Melissa McCarthy) are so natural and relatable, they ground the entire show. These two are the "normal" core around which everything else swirls. But no one is perfect on this show, and that makes it all the more watchable.  And Molly is at her best when despondent, drunk, mad or any combo of these.  Last night's episode focused on the supporting character of Carl, and funny things were said. But I think our time here would be better spent showing Melissa McCarthy doing what she does best, and the real reason I watch this show (p.s. she won an Emmy for this!):


(If video doesn't play above, click here to see hilarity.)

If you are wondering, I totally skip Two and Half Men.

Aside:  While watching these shows last night I saw probably 8,989 ads for Rob! starring that poor sap Rob Schneider as a guy who marries into a Mexican-American family.  Looks absolutely and horrifically cliche-filled awful. How the hell did this get through?!  They can't successfully make a Wonder Woman movie but they can put this crap on TV.  Ay dios mio!

Off Topic Mini-Rant:  So I have just caught up on every episode of Starz Camelot (Britishy, dreamy, lusty, supernatural good stuff with Joseph Fiennes no less) to find out that it is not renewed for another season! *shakes fist at Starz*  I guess this goes in the same bucket as The Pussycat Dolls: The Search for the Next Doll, The Unusuals, Party Down and The Glee Project (maybe?) titled "Shows Only Lisa Watches".

Anyone else watching these shows?  What did you think of the episodes last night? In particular, is HIMYM doing a good job with Marshall and his dad? Is Mike & Molly as cute as I think it is?  Did anyone else on the planet watch The Search for the Next Doll?

2 comments:

Amy G said...

Sorry I can't comment on Monday's shows, or sadly, the Search for the Next Doll. But I will see your Rob! and raise you a Work It. Have you seen the ads for this preposterous and seemingly offensive remake of Bosum Buddies? It's apparently about two straight guys that dress as women to get jobs as pharmasuedical reps. On the bright side, did you hear that Absolutely Fabulous is back with new episodes on BBC America? I'm pumped for that.

LCT said...

Yes, Amy I have seen the ads for Work It and I throw it in the bucket with Rob! (Aside: the actual title of Rob! has the upside down exclamation point used in Spanish before "Rob", but I can't figure out how to get it on here.) No Bosom Buddies remake that. It looks truly awful. Every time I think TV has come so far (which it has) with smart comedies like Modern Family, 30 Rock, Parks & Recreation, some kind of idiot has to come along with this sort of tripe just to piss us off. I'm thinking the pitch went like this: "Not everyone in America is smart, right? Not everyone in America likes women, right? And aren't women stupid and taking all our manly jobs?" The trailer makes me want to throw up. But new eps of AbFab makes me positively giddy!