NBC: 3 Hours of Comedy; At Least Some Of It Funny

Recently, NBC announced plans to turn its Thursday night line-up into 3 straight hours of comedy, following the massive failure of The non-Celebrity Apprentice. Time to look at the upcoming line-up.

Community (8:00 PM)

Since the original mission of this blog was to concentrate solely on the negative, there is not much to say about Community. It's the funniest show on network television and is constantly innovative, surprising, unpredictable, and hysterical.

Perfect Couples (8:30 PM) - New Show

Starring The Waitress from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Olivia Munn, the lesbian triple agent from Flash Forward, and the Hot Guy from 100 Questions (more on that show later), Perfect Couples is the new mid-season comedy coming soon on NBC. According to the official website, “Perfect Couples depicts the misadventures of three engaging couples as they struggle to find out what makes the ideal relationship - and how to maintain it through humorous trial and error.” There's a normal couple, a high drama/high passion couple, and a perfect couple.

It sounds like it belongs on CBS.

Details about the show are lacking at this point, but it seems a betrayal of the uniqueness and freshness offered by the other comedies on NBC. And, Perfect Couples sounds perfectly suited for a ubiquitous Laugh Track, which the other shows wisely avoid.

Of the five other shows that have made up the NBC Thursday line-up over the past couple of years (six if we're including My Name Is Earl and seven if you want to include the short-lived Kath and Kim), none concentrated on “the relationship.” While characters in all of those series loved and lost, romantic entanglements were but one aspect to those series, and never the centerpiece. As important as Jim and Pam's courtship is to The Office's success, it was never the sole focus (although at times it felt to be).

Besides, if NBC was devoted to this type of show, they should have just kept 100 Questions.

More on that later...

The Office (9:00 PM)

Almost canceled after its first season, The Office has become NBC's flagship show for Thursday nights. With the highest ratings and most public recognition, this American take on the British classic is the sun around which the rest of the lineup orbits. Whether this will continue when star Steve Carell (who plays boss Michael Scott) leaves for greener pastures next season remains to be seen.

However, maybe Carell leaving will provide the show with the shot in the arm it needs. Over the past couple of seasons, this once quirky and charming mockumentary on the modern office environment has strayed dangerously close to sitcom territory, with many of the characters either losing their charm or becoming one-dimensional caricatures. Other problems include scene-stealers like Creed and hipster douche Ryan suffering from a dire lack of screen time, and new secretary Erin constantly forced to walk the line between adorable and retarded.

The recent episode The Christening highlighted many of the show's problems. While The Office has regularly taken us out of the office and often strains credibility about where the camera crew would go (why would they follow Pam to school in New York?), it was never as bizarre as the episode featuring the christening of Jim and Pam's child. Why would the entire staff be at a Christening for the child of co-workers they barely seem to like early on a Sunday morning? Early. On a Sunday Morning.

At least the episode Andy's Play earlier this season, about Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) co-starring in a local production about Sweeney Todd, can be somewhat rationalized because it was after work, not early on a weekend. Although the end of episode sing-a-long with the Sabre/Dunder Mifflin employees was a bit disconcerting. Remember, these people do not like each other. (And, while we're on the subject, enough with showcasing Ed Helms' song-and-dance abilities. It seems like every other episode features another musical rendition of something or other by Ed Helms.)

Back to the topic. The Christening episode ended with yet another Michael Scott hissy fit where he jumps on a bus to Mexico with a youth/young adult group with Andy in tow before they decide to abandon ship and return back home. The showrunners have developed quite the problem in finding the balance between a pitiful-yet-likable Michael Scott and pitiful-yet-annoying character.

While hashing out complaints about The Office, there's also Jim Halpert. When the show started, apathetic salesman Jim (John Krasinski) was the most relatable guy on the show. He was miserable in work, miserable in love, and overall miserable in life. The job at Dunder-Mifflin was just a job, but he did not seem to have anything else going on for him and, besides Pam, he didn't have any dreams or aspirations.

Since then, Jim received numerous promotions within the company, became the best salesman in the branch (he reached his commission cap in the latest episode), got the girl, got the wife, got the baby. He went from the lazy guy who had nothing to the guy who has it all, yet still suffers from a lack of passion/interest. Originally, Jim was an outsider who rebelled against the system in minor ways- pranks, jokes, sarcastic looks at the camera, etc.- but now he has become part of the machine, even his recently attempts to alleviate boredom seem to lack the pleasure and creativity that made the character appealing. While I am all for character growth and completely understand that when people get married and have children they tend to settle down, the arc sapped Jim of the qualities that made him a leading man/co-leading man at the show's inception and replaced them with nothing.

To give an idea about what to expect in this big final Carell season, the next new episode on December 2^nd, contains this plot description. “After reading an article about China growing as a global power, Michael (Golden Globe winner Steve Carell) decides China must be stopped before they take over the US.”

The South Park Did it Already

Parks and Recreation (9:30)

After a first very shaky season, Parks and Recreation returned for its second season in September 2009 with a series leaps and bounds beyond its first six episodes. Originally accused of being a The Office ripoff, the second season of Parks and Recreation presented remarkably deep characters that engaged in unexpectedly intelligent, honest conversations. As low-key, small-government-loving director of the Parks department, Nick Offerman's Ron Swanson (with sax playing alter ego Duke Silver) emerged as a truly great television character.

So NBC axed it for the first half of the 2010-2011 season.

30 Rock (10:00 PM)

Despite its reliance on celebrity guest stars, 30 Rock remains a strong player in the Thursday night line-up. Is it better than Community or Parks and Recreation? No, but it is a steady performer. However, as the show wraps up its fifth season, Kenneth needs to own NBC or everyone should be dead by his hands.

Outsourced (10:30 PM)

The latest edition to the Thursday night line-up is Outsourced. Based on a 2004 movie, Outsourced is an oddly-paced (its reliance on broad humor makes the show feel like it needs a laugh track, yet its lack of timing seems more suited to a dramedy) series about Todd (Ben Rappaport), the American manager in an Indian call center for a company that sells novelty goods. Todd is also ridiculously unlikeable, creepy, and comes across as just about every bad boss in a Lifetime Original Movie.

The best I can figure is that Todd is supposed to be charming and a decent person. However, due mostly to Rappaport's performance, he comes across as a worse human being than David Cross' hapless pathological liar Todd Margaret. Of course, having a dick for a lead character is not necessarily a bad thing. In Community, Jeff Winger (Joel McHale) is a vain, self-involved douchebag, but it is who he is. The other characters acknowledge it, he admits it, and it works. Similarly, in The Office, Michael Scott is a bit of an oblivious asshole but his incompetence is belied by his patheticness and, through Carell's performance, the sense that he generally means well.

Todd has none of the qualities that make those two characters work. He's scummy, and although he seems to think that he's a good person, you never get the sense that he means well. Condescending and self-centered, Todd seems to have zero interest or care in the foreign exotic culture his job thrust him into. He regularly gets annoyed when his employees won't conform to, or have an intrinsic understanding of, American standards of behavior, while it's doubtful that he's even picked up so much as “The Child's Guide To India.” Of course, it does not help that all the writers seem to know about India is arranged marriages, silly names (Todd laughs at every new Indian name he hears), and they worship a number of wacky gods.

Because a show like this needs an unrequited love story, Todd is unreasonably drawn to Asha (Rebecca Hazelwood), a subordinate who works in the call center. She is set to be arranged married to someone else, much to Todd's dismay and anger. Asha's ability to spurn Todd's blatant and forceful advances seems to only make him want her more, and Todd's feelings towards her make Boardwalk Empire's Van Alden's attraction to Mrs. Shroeder seem positively darling.

Todd has one-dimensional underlings (all the characters are one dimensional for that matter) like Madhuri (Anisha Nagarajan), Gupta (Parvesh Cheena), and Manmeet (Sacha Dhawan) to help him with his dirty work. I can only assume they go along with Todd's schemes because either they believe it's how people act in America, they fear being fired if they don't assist, or both.

100 Questions

During the summer of 2010, NBC aired six episodes of 100 Questions in place of Parks and Recreation. Starring Sophie Winkleman (a Brit who actually spoke in a British accent) and Collette Wolfe, this laugh track permeated show was a “brilliant” throw back to the era of Seinfeld and Friends where every other comedy on the NBC line-up (Caroline in the City, The Single Guy, Union Square, etc.) was a rip-off of Friends, which itself was an inferior knockoff of Seinfeld.

100 Questions followed Charlotte Payne, a woman seeking the love of her life at a dating service. At the beginning of each episode, Gay Black Dating Service Guy asks her a question, and the following half hour features a story from her past loosely related to that question.

One immediate problem: the show did not give any indication how far in the future the questioning takes place (e.g. are the questions asked in 2010 while the answers occurred in the 2000s? Are the questions in 2015 while the answers are today?) or how many questions Payne answers in a given session, given that each “episode” was a different question.

As a gimmick, it lacked cohesiveness even in the six few episodes that aired. The episodes did not end with GBDSG and Payne having a “Mork Calling Orson”/What Did We Learn moment nor was it used as a framing device, as a different subplot generally wrapped up over the closing credits.

As mentioned, the show was a Friends-ian ripoff, and Charlotte's gang of misfits consisted of Nerdy Guy. Hot Guy. Stupid Girl Friend One. And Stupid Girl Friend Two: The Foreign One.

The show was also responsible for one of the most oddly designed bars (as in the place they went to drink/hang out) in recent television history, and this theme song.

Just listen to that.

Nevertheless, there was a charm to 100 Questions. The lame laugh track, the way too close friends, the Sitcom 101 dialogue and jokes, 100 Questions was terrible without being ironic or meta about it, which is rare these days. Unfortunately, it was not renewed.

The new season starts on January 20.

The Elusiveness of the Serial Killer Biopic

Introduction

Everyone loves the biopic. These films are as formulaic as the typical action movie, yet tailor-made for awards season. Even mediocre actors can get critical acclaim for their “daring” performance of doing an impression of someone everybody knows.

Precious few biopics manage to delve deeply into their subjects or offer something new to the genre (Control about Ian Curtis, Nixon about Richard Nixon, and I'm Not There about Bob Dylan are some rare, noteworthy films). Instead, most biopics are the equivalent of a “greatest hits” album, giving little insight into the subject or his/her impact on culture (yes, I'm including Ray and Walk The Line).

Probably since the 1930s, if not earlier, crime dramas have served as one of the preeminent genres in cinema. From gangster films (Little Caesar, Manhattan Melodrama) to film noir (Double Indemnity, Kiss Me Deadly) to cops-that-don't play by the rules (The French Connection, Dirty Harry) to the criminals themselves (The Godfather, Pulp Fiction), crime remains a prevalent subject for films all around the world.

Very few can deny the public's fascination with serial killers. 1952's remarkably prescient The Sniper probably represents the first film with an understanding of the psychological make-up of the serial killer. Since then, fictional books, movies, and television series (Peeping Tom, Natural Born Killers, American Psycho, The Killer Inside Me, Dexter) all feature serial killer protagonists and a number of true crime shows devote themselves to the study of the breed.

There is also the classic cop-chases-serial-killer films ranging in quality from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and David Fincher's Seven to those terrible Morgan Freeman Alex Cross Mysteries, Kiss the Girls and Along Came A Spider.

The question then becomes, why are there practically no biopics/based-on-a-true-story films about serial killers? It seems a given considering the above factors, but “true” serial killer films are surprisingly rare.

The Acclaimed Films

The two most critically acclaimed real life “serial killer” films are probably 2003's Monster and 2007's Zodiac, but neither of those movies were actually a serial killer biopic.

Monster, the 2003 film about Aileen Wuornos, purports to be about the rare female serial killer. However, it runs into two problems: 1) it is too Oscar-baity (and won the film's star Charlize Theron an Oscar as “really hot chick uglied up”) and 2) Aileen does not come across as a serial killer. In the film, Aileen seems less driven by the compulsion that defines serial killers and more because she's a man-hater, angry with men who won't hire her for jobs that she's dangerously unqualified for.

The focus of David Fincher's Zodiac was not the serial killer himself, but the people investigating the crime. This is understandable, as The Zodiac Killer's identity remains a mystery to this day. Zodiac works as a true story/procedural about catching a serial killer, but is not a movie about the serial killer himself.

Similarly, Spike Lee's Summer of Sam concentrated on a group of people living in New York during the time of the Son of Sam killings. While David Berkowitz was a character in the film (complete with hilarious talking dog sequence),

he was merely incidental to the story of Adrian Brody and John Leguizamo's characters.

Based On A Real Serial Killer

While some real life serial killers inspire real films (e.g. The Zodiac Killer inspiring Dirty Harry, Ed Gein inspiring Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc.), a number of films are actually based on an actual killer.

1986's remarkably brutal and terrific Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, featuring Michael Rooker as “Henry,” begins with a title card explaining that it's based on, but not meant to be a factual account of, the exploits of Henry Lee Lucas- America's most prolific serial killer, with over 600 claimed murders. Also in the film is Ottis, based on Henry's real life partner-in-crime Ottis Toole. Although H:POASK is commonly classified as a “horror” movie, the film and the performances contain a grittiness and intensity that few movies of any genre manage to obtain. All things considered, H:POASK would probably rank as the best “real” serial killer movie.

Years earlier, in 1968, Tony Curtis starred in The Boston Strangler, about The Boston Strangler (Albert DeSalvo) who terrorized Massachusetts in the early 1960s. Although the movie took more than a few liberties with the story (especially the fate of DeSalvo), the film was clearly a professional production. Backed by Twentieth Century Fox and with decent performances by Curtis, Henry Fonda, and George Kennedy, The Boston Strangler provides a much better-than-average example of the typical “real” serial killer movie.

Based On Other Source Material

In other instances, authors fictionalize the life of a serial killer, and then that account becomes a film.

2001's From Hell (starring Johnny Depp and Heather Graham) about Jack the Ripper is an adaptation of a graphic novel and not actually about the Whitechapel Murderer. Saying that From Hell is a Jack the Ripper movie would be like saying that League of Extraordinary Gentlemen constitutes Tom Sawyer: The Motion Picture.

Similarly, Leonardo DiCaprio announced plans to star in the feature film version of Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City. The movie will be based on the best-selling novel about America's first serial killer (H.H. Holmes), but not about the serial killer himself. See also: The Black Dahlia, being about the Elmore Leonard book and not the actual case.

Charlie Manson

Arguably America's best-known killer (despite not actually being a serial killer or physically participating in the murders he is most famous for), Charlie Manson never received an actual biopic. Manson Movies (and Manson TV-Movies) concentrate exclusively on the Vincent Bugliosi book Helter Skelter. While The Manson Family, the Tate/La Bianca murders, and the subsequent trial are important to the story of Charles Manson, the tale of the former singer/racial leader has a lot more untapped depth.

Recently, True Blood's Ryan Kwanten was cast as Charlie Manson in a The Family, a new movie that alleges to be more about The Family and its leader as opposed to the murders and trial.

The Crap

There are a number of famous serial killer “biopics” (a term I use very loosely), but they are low budget, poorly done, straight-to-video horror films. The type you'd expect to see available on FearNET, complete with a stupid joke to end the synopsis. Because of these films' positioning as schlock slasher fare, one should not be surprised that the filmmakers don't bother to delve into the motivations of these icons; the blatant inaccuracies make it clear that the filmmakers merely wanted to trade on name recognition.

Some of the most notable and infamous serial killers in American history received this treatment including homosexual cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer in 2002's Dahmer (starring Academy Award nominee Jeremy Renner); gentleman killer Ted Bundy in 2002's Ted Bundy; Wisconsin weirdo Ed Gein in 2000's Ed Gein; and killer clown John Wayne Gacy in 2003's Gacy.

Conclusion

In addition to those mentioned above, names like Richard “The Night Stalker” Ramirez, Albert “The Grey Man” Fish, and Joel “The Seinfeld Reference” Rifkin remain part of the popular crime culture landscape years after these killers finished their deeds, yet none of them have had their stories told cinematically. It's not as though Hollywood has an aversion to “real life” crime films, with a history ranging from before 1967's Bonnie and Clyde to after 2009's Public Enemies. And, as repeated ad nauseum over this post, the serial killer is not a rare topic for filmmakers to tackle.

The question therefore isn't why hasn't a serial killer biopic succeeded, but why hasn't it been tried in the first place?

TRAILER REPORT: LOVE AND OTHER DRUGS (SPOILERS)

We know romantic comedy-dramas. Male and Female meet, date, there's some minor disagreement over some insignificant thing, and then they get back together. All the while, quirky-yet-personalityless best friends provide hackneyed attempts at laughs. Love and Other Drugs seems to be one of those movies...probably.

The trailer for Love and Other Drugs shows cad/pharmaceutical rep Jamie (Jake Gyllenhaal) reforming his ways after he meets Maggie (Anne Hathaway). I guess she's some sort of “free-spirit” in the not-particularly-interesting mold of Jennifer Aniston in Along Came Polly and Jenna Elfman in Dharma and Greg.

They fall for one another, Jamie becomes a sales rep for Viagra (whether this plot point is relevant or if there's a rationale behind making this a period piece, I don't know), and they're clearly going to have relationship problems. It's the formula for this type of movie and director Edward Zwick (The Last Samurai, Blood Diamond, Defiance) is not the type of filmmaker who strays too far from the formula.

The trailer clearly alludes to a problem between the two, but gives no insights into what it might be. Jamie seems too into Maggie to return to being a cad, and Maggie's one explanation for doubting the relationship (that she doesn't want to hold him back) is too vague to be the sole reason for their relationship woes; there has to be a more tangible reason. Put another way, one party feeling that they're holding the other party back is the effect. What is the cause?

** SPOILERS BELOW **

Supposedly, Maggie suffers from a terminal disease and that's what causes the rift. I actually do believe that there was a first trailer to Love and Other Drugs that made reference to this fact, but I haven't seen it and cannot find it. (Actually, I just couldn't listen to Jake Gyllenhaal's delivery of “Hey Lisa” anymore.)

In order to make the film seem lighthearted as opposed to depressing, the people who re-cut the trailer (the “second” trailer is the one constantly shown in theaters and from which the television ad campaign is based) eliminated any trace of this fact. It's understandable- a fun movie about two attractive people falling in love will probably reel in more people than a movie about mortality. Yet by excising this plot point in all the advertisements, Maggie instead comes across as completely fucking mental.

She's violent, then she's crying, she's highly sexed, then she's self-hating. Based on the ads alone, if I had to guess, I'd say that Maggie was bipolar. Severely bipolar.

This wouldn't be a bad thing, mind you. Gyllenhaal and Hathaway have proven themselves as perfectly suitable leads for a film about emotional instability and the self-destructiveness, obsessiveness, and addiction-like quality of love. Additionally, this take on the subject would actually fit the title of the film.

Unfortunately, this movie does not appear to be Days of Wine and Roses 2010. From the ads, it seems to follow the Generic Romantic Comedy-Drama Playbook mostly to a T. Yet the zaniness of Bored to Death's Oliver Platt and the other fat guy who had a guest appearance this season on Bored to Death contrasts with Maggie's breakdowns, further highlighting that there's a big piece of the puzzle missing in this tale of love.

There will always be an audience for a love-until-and-beyond-the-grave movie. From Terms of Endearment to The Notebook, this genre works. Imagining your loved one dying might not get people riled up for a big holiday weekend, but these films work and usually do decent business over time. Yet the attempt to redact this information ends up making the Love and Other Drugs come across as darker and without the heart-wrenching element that turns those other films into successes.

Love and Other Drugs opens November 24, and its the biggest Thanksgiving movie for a pretty important demo, further showing what a lame year 2010 has been for films. Also being released that weekend are: Disney's animatead Tangled, Dwayne Johnson's revenge flick Faster, and Christina Aguilera/Cher PG-13 musical Burlesque.

Of course, I might be entirely wrong. Love and Other Drugs could be a modern day Sid and Nancy. In which case, I'd see this one in theaters.