The show is filmed in front of a live studio audience, and it very much feels like an attempt to return to old school classic NBC sitcoms. I say attempt because such a return doesn't really feel possible. When shows like Louie, Parks & Recreation, and Community are pushing the boundaries of what television can and should be, a show like Guys With Kids feels out of place and perilously un-hip.
The actors are, unsurprisingly, pretty solid. Anthony Anderson has been one of my favorites for years, though I felt he was much better served by his stint on Law & Order. Jesse Bradford is one of the most consistently charismatic actors around (and now I want to go watch Swimfan)...but the script and the format of the show are doing no one any favors. The lines just FEEL like they're being read. Instead of immersing me in the world of the show, everything about the show says, "Welcome to the set of my sitcom. Please laugh when that sign lights up!" This isn't Friends or Fraiser or Seinfeld - you can't make those shows anymore! Or, I should say, you shouldn't try tomake those shows anymore. Those fantastic shows should be looked back upon with nostalgia; they are the product of an era that no longer exists. Just because Diff'rent Strokes was well-loved in its time doesn't mean that a show about some funny black kids living with an old white man would fly in 2012. It's the same with this multi-cam sitcom format. No one yet has REALLY found a way to move it in a new direction, which, if it's going to be revisited, is what needs to happen. How I Met Your Mother has shaken things up a bit, with all of their flashbacks and inner bits and stuff, and I would give them much more credit...if it weren't for the laugh track. Laugh tracks are creepy. Those people laughing are DEAD. Not to mention that it's annoying as shit. I feel like there's a way to keep the multi-cam set-up, omit any form of forced laughter, and push the boundaries of this form of comedy in a new and interesting way.
Look, I'm not totally ignorant. I've watched CBS. I know that they've basically just been remaking Everybody Loves Raymond for fifteen years. Aside from How I Met Your Mother (and even sometimes them, too), all of their comedies are pretty much this exact same bullshit (except with a laugh track instead of a live audience). And those shows are terrible! At least Guys With Kids isn't horribly offensive. But I wish that instead of pandering to the lazy viewers who just want to keep watching Home Improvement in one form or another that the networks would actually try to move forward once in a while. This is what concerns me about NBC's stated aim to make shows that more people will like - if you make something that everyone likes, odds are it's going to be BLAND. And that's what I see all over the new NBC fall shows...nothing but bland (though I did really enjoy Go On. We'll talk about that more this week). Thank god we've still got Parks & Rec and Community (though...we'll see how good the new Harmon-less Community is and we'll see how long it actually lasts), but it's not enough. The networks are regressing, and I'm getting worried.
Guys With Kids feels very much like Jimmy Fallon (who is the creator, I think?)'s attempt to create a sitcom using his own life experiences as a cool dad. Which, on its surface, is not a terrible idea...but there's nothing new or revolutionary about it. These days, if you're known as a creative performer with an ability to connect with young viewers, it makes absolutely no sense to revert to this old-fashioned, hackneyed format. It just doesn't! Be inventive! Try something different! Especially if you have the clout that Fallon has. I might check out a few more episodes of Guys With Kids, just to see if it gets any better, but if I'm going to stick around for the long term, it's going to have to really start shaking things up. There is just no point in watching a worse version of a show I've already seen a billion times before.
And man, those Titanic jokes were BAD.
Images via zap2it
No comments:
Post a Comment