Network comedy today is no laughing matter. The days when you could watch two solid hours of great comedy on one night are long gone; heck, it’s difficult to find two solid hours of comedy in a week.
But all is not entirely lost. I’ve checked out three new shows – one pretty good, another with great potential, and another disappointing – and I’m happy to say that last season’s best new comedy is living up to last year’s potential.
First, the pretty good.
DMV (CBS, Global) is a workplace comedy set in a truly terrible workplace – the department of motor vehicles. Australian actress Harriet Dyer (who also stars in Colin from Accounts and was a regular on the unjustly neglected series American Auto) leads the cast that includes former SNL performers, Molly Kearney and SNL great Tim Meadows, and Tony Cavalero, who played the muscle-bound dimbulb on The Righteous Gemstones. DMV is still finding its way, but overall, it’s a solid half-hour, single-camera comedy. The first episode showed just enough potential for another watch, and it’s only getting better.
Now, the disappointing.
I had high hopes for The Paper (NBC, Global; already renewed for a second season). A semi-sequel to The Office, this mockumentary comedy uses the same format as The Office, supposedly using the same camera crew. If only it were half as good as The Office. Co-created by Greg Daniels – whose credits include writing for SNL and The Simpsons, adapting The Office for U.S. TV and co-creating Parks and Recreation and King of the Hill – The Paper is deeply disappointing. Based at a floundering newspaper in Toledo, Ohio, the characters vary between lame and annoying (the managing editor has an almost impenetrable Italian accent, and why she would be in charge of a paper in Ohio makes no sense whatsoever). Having spent my entire writing career in the newspaper business, I had high hopes for The Paper. However, it lacks a genuine connection to newspapers, or a workplace for that matter. A bitter disappointment for me.
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Now, the highlight.
Ever heard of Stumble (NBC)? Neither had I, until I stumbled (sorry, couldn’t resist) upon it one night while searching for new comedy.
Stumble is a mockumentary about a small college cheer team, which begins in the hilariously named Sammy Davis Sr. Junior College. The champion cheer coach, Courtney (a perfectly preppy Jenn Lyon) is fired after a scandal, and finds new work at an even lower-level college. Courtney has to build a cheer team from scratch, resulting in the usual rag-tag bunch of characters. Fortunately for us, the characters are very funny (one is narcoleptic and tends to fall asleep during performances) and immediately likable. Former SNLer Taran Killam plays Courtney’s supportive husband, a football coach who never fully recovered from a particularly devastating hit on the field, shown in increasingly funny flashbacks.
Stumble is a blast, a series with great potential. But why has NBC relegated it to the dead zone of Friday night? Its lead-in, the awful formula comedy Happy’s Place, is a terrible match. It would be a much better match with St. Denis Medical, which I’m very happy to say is living up to last year’s potential, solidly now the best comedy on TV.
