Record scratch soundbyte4/8/2023 ![]() ![]() When the pair are on-screen together, there's a hint of camaraderie as they mug for the camera together, the studio audience howling with pre-determined laughter. Smoove, similarly, was on HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm", a show that redefined biting humor. It's hard not to imagine a flicker of pain in his eyes as he works his way through each telegraphed punchline, each painfully contrived arc, with nary a moment or idea to sink his comedy teeth into. Arnett shot to fame thanks to "Arrested Development", one of the greatest sitcoms of the 21st century, everything "The Millers" isn't, and among an immensely talented ensemble cast, he was one of the MVPs. Smoove as Nathan's friend and co-worker, Ray. Still, despair most for Will Arnett, with a tear on the side for J.B. Tom may be cartoonishly clueless, but cluelessness is less intrusive than Carol's never-ending know-it-all self-righteousness. ![]() Carol is cursed with an obnoxious lack of self-awareness that the show's writing staff seems to hope people will find endearing, or at least pitiable, but it's one of the show's most off-putting creative choices. Margo Martindale puts a little more effort in, but the scripts have nothing to offer, rewarding her effort with a shrill, bossy character to play that many viewers will quickly hate as much as Nathan does. Bridges fares the worst, dropping his lines in an energy-free monotone that almost suggests he knows how uninspiring his dialogue is, and is trying to communicate his disdain to the audience. The most depressing thing about "The Millers" is how easily it wastes an impressive and talented cast. Sure, these are jokes, but they're also jokes that celebrate the characters' awful personalities. Then again, that's nothing compared to Tom's utter cluelessness: he's presented as so dumb he doesn't know whether there are feathers inside eggs. One episode revolves around a family cemetery plot that Carol purchased while Nathan and Janice were still together, and ends with Carol having staged her heartbreak, and convinced a fellow mother to hit the road in the hopes of badgering her estranged children into giving up Judaism for Christianity. Creator Greg Garcia offers up the naggy mom and dopey dad pushed to their most repellent extremes. ![]() Were "The Millers" a pitch-black satire with serious bite, that might be kind of funny, but this is four-quadrant entertainment at its most pandering. A show like "Everybody Loves Raymond" may have run through a fair share of tropes about marriage or men and women, but the entire hilarious set-up for every punchline on "The Millers" is that Carol and Tom hate each other's guts. This is, to put it lightly, an awful comedic premise for something as safe as network TV. Although Nathan is just worried his mother will freak out, it's his father who does something drastic: he promptly divorces Carol - if his son can do it, then damn it, he can too. Unfortunately, when Carol and Tom come to town for the weekend and unexpectedly end up at Nathan's home instead of Debbie's, Nathan admits the truth. Although she was reluctant at first, Nathan's sister Debbie (Jayma Mays) is also willing to go along with the lie, as is her husband Adam (Nelson Franklin). The only catch is, he hasn't yet told his parents, Carol (Margo Martindale) and Tom (Beau Bridges), because he's the "perfect son" and he doesn't want to deal with their reaction. Nathan Miller (Will Arnett) is a TV news anchor (simultaneously unpopular enough to be dissatisfied with his position, but famous enough to be repeatedly recognized), newly living the single life after divorcing his wife of three years, Janice (Eliza Coupe). "The Millers" is one of the latter shows, so desperately chained to the past that it's willing to sink. Rhythms and beats that once seemed like part of the format now verge on self-parody simply by occurring, because sitcoms like "The Office" and "Community" illustrate that breaking from convention can work. On one end of the spectrum, single-camera sitcoms with no laugh track strive to be different, while the "traditional" sitcom burrows its head deeper and deeper into the sand, almost insistently refusing to grow or change with the times. In the '90s, the network sitcom had a contemporary golden age: "Seinfeld", "Friends", and the best seasons of "The Simpsons", among others, were not just popular but also cultural phenomenons, striking a perfect balance between "edgy" and "comforting." As the 21st century dawned, however, those two tones split off into distinctly different directions.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |