Hello, everyone! It's another wonderful Tuesday here in the land of television, so let's break down all of the comedies that have graciously been given to us tonight (except for all of the ones that suck):
Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Everyone knows comedy pilots are hard to get right, but second episodes are arguably just as hard. You have to retain what people liked about the pilot, while progressing your world and characters in a way that allows the audience to see that your characters aren't static - and yet not doing it too much, in fear of going too far too soon. Brooklyn Nine-Nine's second episode is certainly a repeat of the pilot in several ways, but it repeats and adds to the pilots' strongest element - the mentor relationship between Jake and Captain Holt. We don't necessarily learn anything new about either of them in this episode, but their relationship is deepened and progressed in smart but subtle ways. I thought the mirroring that the relationship between the police captain and his delinquent son and Jake and Captian Holt's relationship was fairly well-done, if slightly on-the-nose, and the two continued to demonstrate the solid comic energy that they delivered so well in the pilot. The rest of the ensemble was contained to the episodes' B-plot, which involved Joe becoming nervous after Gina's fortune teller friend informed him that Rosa would never love him and he'd spend his life alone. The plot itself was pretty standard sitcom fare, but I liked the way it brought out the personalities of the rest of the ensemble - particularly Chelsea Peretti's Gina, who is really coming onto her own. Brooklyn Nine-Nine isn't completely there yet - the humor feels shoehorned at times, and the ensemble, while strong, hasn't completely gelled just yet - but it's already making great strides to get there.
New Girl: Tonight's New Girl felt like the first time since the start of the Nick/Jess arc that the show was able to just take a breath and relax a bit. The better part of Season 2's back half was spent carefully plotting Nick and Jess's relationship, and the premiere had to do the dirty work of actually dealing with the conclusion of that plotting. So it's probably natural that tonight'd "Nerd" felt like a bit of a filler episode. Even the central Jess/Nick plot- a place where the show usually does its heavy lifting - didn't have all that much to say outside of "hey, these people are dating now, and they're cute". As for Winston and Schmidt's stories - Winston got perhaps the funniest material of the episode, but the show never made Daisy enough of a thing to make his plot pack any emotional weight whatsoever. And Schmidt's plot continues to get more and more irritating the longer the show drags it on. Schmidt is often allowed to get away with terrible behavior, because he's the kind of character we expect it from (I mean, hello, douchebag jar). But his douchebaggery is entering new heights here - and, worst of all, it's being presented as some sort of wacky comic scenario, instead of the alarming example of insecurity that it really is. I have enough faith in New Girl to give Schmidt what he deserves and to find the emotional weight of this eventually, but I wish it would happen sooner. Anyway, I feel like I'm coming down hard on an episode of television that made me laugh a lot and prominently featured the entire cast singing "I Believe I Can Fly". The laidback vibe of this episode wasn't always a bad thing - it made the episodes' comedy come fast and effortless, and it was overall a reliably good time. But after some of the truly excellent half-hours the show produced last season, an amusing but lightweight outing can't help but feel like a bit of a letdown. Still, if an episode as funny and entertaining as this one now qualifies as a "letdown" for New Girl, then it's in pretty good hands at the start of this third season.
Trophy Wife: I don't have a lot to say about the pilot of Trophy Wife, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's a highly competent pilot episode, one that nails a lot of the beats that comedy pilots often miss, and lets is strong ensemble cast do most of the heavy lifting. The premise of the show is kind of uninteresting at its core, but the show puts a certain earnestness into it that allows it to actually be pulled off. There's a lot of great gags, its tightly-written and handsomely directed. The only place where the show falls a bit flat for me is in one of the most important quadrants - its characters. I didn't really connect to any character at the end of this pilot, which is a bit of an issue, because I like to have at least someone I can hold onto in a comedy pilot. Because of that, I'm not sure Trophy Wife is the type of show I'll be running to catch every week, but its strong writing and great cast is enough to hold my interest for a while.
I did not watch Dads because I value my time and sanity. I did not watch The Goldbergs because I get enough yelling and dated pop culture references from my own family. And I did not watch The Mindy Project because it's never going to get better and it's time I accepted that. But everything else was pretty good! Yay, network TV season! We love you, network TV season!
Also, I have no interest in a weekly Marvel procedural. Sorry, ABC/Joss Whedon!
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