Dear Jenny --
Did you watch last night's "sneak preview" (or some such thing) of What About Brian?? (I don't know how to make that punctuation look right.) ABC ran the pilot last night, in place of Grey's Anatomy. Tonight is the "premiere," which is really the second episode. It's all very confusing.
Considering that some of us are drifting out of the "key demographics," as an irksome local news promotion here describes them, it's odd to feel as targeted as this show makes me feel. Let's talk about all the ways in which What About Brian? seems to be aimed squarely at me. I like Barry Watson. Like you, I find him to be a surprisingly agile comic actor. (I also adored his writing debut on 7th Heaven. I thought it was surprisingly astute and funny, one of the last high points before the series hit the crapper.) I like Rick Gomez, who plays one of Brian's friends. He played Endless Mike on The Adventures of Pete & Pete and it always makes me happy when someone associated with that show makes good. I like Matthew Davis. I thought he was one of the few genuinely funny things about Legally Blonde (which I did not like very much and yet cannot look away from, any time it pops up on TBS). I still like J.J. Abrams, despite the last few seasons of Alias. I love Jeff Judah and Gabe Sachs, who are among the writers and producers of What About Brian?. (OK. That's the last time I end a sentence with the damned thing's title.) They were among the writers and producers of Freaks and Geeks, a show good enough to get them a pass even for the hard-to-watch life as we know it. This show, What about Brian?, is about a single guy in his (*cough*) 30s whose entire social group is paired off.
The pilot definitely exhibited some potential and some problems. First the problems: Rosanna Arquette is a series regular. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to muster any emotion other than abject fear, no matter what she does. Maybe that will work. Sarah Lancaster, who played Madison, the nanny-cum-love-interest, on Everwood, seems kind of miscast again, as the center of a love triangle with Watson's title character and Davis's. I'm worried that Davis's character may be too smarmy to maintain for an entire series (however long that may be -- Monday at 10:00 doesn't seem like a plum slot and Supernanny may not be an ideal lead-in). Some of the characterization short-hand (Watson drives a 1970s-vintage panel station wagon with a wonky radio; Gomez and wife Amanda Detmer have kids and tattoos) seems a little heavy.
It's a pleasant first hour, though. The exposition is handled fairly gracefully. Amy Jo Johnson (the Shannen Doherty of the J.J. Abrams set?) does a really nice job with an implausible character. Detmer nails a few throw-away lines. There's one yoga joke so spot-on I wanted to use it for the title of this post, but then decided not to spoil it. Anyway, I plugged tonight's "premiere" into my TiVo. I'm pretty optimistic.
Love,
-- Pete
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