It’s safe to go back to the half-hour. Even for viewers without cable, the networks are bringing the funny.
For a polite period after the untimely death of Fox’s daring, smart “Arrested Development,” it was painful to consider warming to another network comedy. We cherish both its memory and its DVD set.
Last year’s best comedy experiments seemed confined to cable: the snarky Hollywood sendup “Entourage” and Larry David’s self-deprecating, misogynistic life story, “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” were reliably perverse treats on HBO. Kirstie Alley’s wicked, in- your-face humiliation, Showtime’s “Fat Actress,” was screamingly over the top, often in a good way. And Lisa Kudrow’s faux-documentary of a middle-
aged former sitcom star making a return to television, “The Comeback” on HBO, was an achingly brilliant, underappreciated sendup of showbiz amorality.
Meanwhile the commercial networks were bogged down in adolescent gags and double-entendres; witness “Two and a Half Men.”
The wonderfully absurd “Scrubs,” the quirky family dysfunction of “Malcolm in the Middle” and “The Simpsons” are the aging exceptions.
Then along came a mini-comedic revival, pushing new ways of thinking about the half-hour sitcom: idiosyncratic, impressionistic, nonlinear and generally weird.
Taking off from the inventive styles of “Malcolm” and “Arrested,” several current series deserve recognition: “My Name Is Earl,” “The New Adventures of Old Christine,” “How I Met Your Mother,” the reinvigorated American version of the British hit “The Office,” and “Sons and Daughters” are taking TV comedy into uncharted turf for the new millennium.
ABC’s witty “Sons and Daughters,” laced with the most acerbic humor since “Arrested Development,” showcases a dysfunctional family of eccentric characters to rival the Bluths. It has its own, more ethnic feel, more laden with insane in-laws, more troubled by, dare we say, realism.
“Sons and Daughters” is “on the bubble” for next season, awaiting word from ABC as to whether it will be re-upped. It’s only the smartest comedy they’ve got. (Why not pair it with the Mick Jagger sitcom, reported by The New York Times as being under consideration for ABC’s fall schedule?)
“The Office,” which has its season finale May 11, has exceeded all expectations as a faux-doc about the workers at a dull Scranton, Pa., paper company and their unctuous boss Michael Scott, played by Steve Carell (“The 40-Year-
Old Virgin”). The excruciating interpersonal dynamics get funnier the more you watch. Rainn Wilson as humorless Dwight is the perfect foil. More sight gags go by in the background than most series boast in the foreground. (Did you catch Jim – John Krasinski – egging Dwight into a fight and snapping his fingers behind Dwight’s back, making like a “West Side Story” Jet? Priceless.)
The increasingly watchable “How I Met Your Mother” threatens to bring Ted (Josh Radnor) and Robin (Cobie Smulders) together and split Lily (Alyson Hannigan) and Marshall (Jason Segal) apart in its May 22 season finale. Major credit goes to Neil Patrick Harris as the offensive womanizer Barney, who “harshes our mellow” to perfection. Having successfully reinvented himself after “Doogie Howser, MD,” Harris joins the elite circle of TV veterans (Bea Arthur, Bob Newhart, Mary Tyler Moore) able to shed one identifying role for another. It remains to be seen if Julia Louis-Dreyfus can do the same with “The New Adventures of Old Christine,” a contemporary comedy with a fresh, grown-up point of view. This promising entry delivers thoughtful middle-age female divorcée angst, with an edge.
Finally, and phenomenally, NBC picked a winner with “My Name Is Earl,” a consistently amazing little gem that combines white-trash self-deprecation with talk of karma. And laugh-out-
loud sequences and concepts, more than specific punch lines, that bear repeating at the water cooler. The eclectic ensemble is living up to the estimable talents of Jason Lee in the title role.
Fears of crime procedurals and reality shows devouring primetime were overstated. As usual, reports of the sitcom’s death were premature.
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-820-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
