I’m smirking just a little bit this morning–for me, that’s not necessarily a default reaction. Part of the reason is that I’m actually encouraged by what at least is a decent trailer for NBC’s NEWLYWEDS, which has been cropping up pretty much everywhere I scroll in anticipation of tonight’s series premiere. I’m clearly in the wheelhouse for something like this–points that THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER’s Daniel Feinberg made damn sure anyone reading his review knew straight up:
Newlyweds would have been a perfect midseason replacement to occupy the 9:30 Must See TV slot in the late ’90s, an innocuous fill-in instead of reruns of Wings or The Naked Truth…If some parts of that sentence – “midseason,” “Wings,” “The Naked Truth,” “NBC” – were foreign to you, you probably are not the target audience for Newlyweds, a resolutely old-fashioned comedy that harkens back to the days when comedies were comedies and you knew they were comedies because the studio audience told you when to roar with laughter…Those were the days! Yes, that’s another gatekeeping reference aimed to differentiate between the target audience for Newlyweds and a hip, modern audience that thinks a “comedy” is a show that makes you squirm with discomfort or invest deeply in whether or not a fine dining restaurant secures a Michelin star.
These days, much like any opportunity for to dine at such an establishment, the hugely inconsequential and sparsely viewed 8 PM Friday hour is where you’ll find a sitcom (hey, if Chuck Lorre can embrace the word, so can you) with the sort of pedigrees that this has. There’s plenty of familiar faces and still rocking bodies to be found–real-life couple and 90s heartthrobs Tim Daly and Tea Leoni are the eponymous lovebirds who impulsively decide to make it official, throwing their Gen Z offspring and colleagues into a tizzy of concern. The intergenerational banter where the young ‘uns come off as the true adults in the room is hardly an original plot line–back in those Pleistocene days, we saw those sort of id-inspired couplings in the likes of forgotten efforts like SOMETHING SO RIGHT and ANYTHING BUT LOVE. The latter was the TV breakthrough for NEWLYWEDS’ antagonist Jamie Lee Curtis, who as Daly’s ex looms over this couple like Super El Nino does this holiday season. And per the clearly old school embracing Taylor Gates of DECIDER, it’s she–arguably the most familiar personality after her award-winning recent work–that brings out the sort of scenes that I suspect allowed this to test as highly as it did:
Claudia is the type of character who walks a thin line between being obnoxious in a hilarious way and an insufferable one. Thankfully, in Curtis’ capable hands, she is overwhelmingly the former. It’s easy to see how much of a blast she’s having chewing the scenery as the arrogant, nosy antagonist. Many of the show’s best scenes are between her and her unexpected, impossible-to-define relationship with Arvid. O’Neill also pulls off a challenging role that runs the risk of feeling eccentric and quirky for the sake of it, fully committing to the lovable odd duck of a character and winning hearts in the process.
O’Neill’s Arvid is yet another throwback to those “good old days”, reminiscent of PERFECT STRANGERS’ Balki, TAXI’s Latka or TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT’s Monroe–take your pick. Not a surprise considering who the puppeteers have been. Director Pam Fryman, who I saw first hand on the Netflix ONE DAY AT A TIME, has been at this since that show’s OG version and with the recent passing of Jim Burrows may now be the finest living orchestrator of four-camera magic remaining. Feinberg takes time out from his carping to lay deserved praise on her efforts to set a tone of easy confidence which belies the behind-the-scenes drama that has already seen showrunner Gail Lerner, a veteran of shows like BLACK-ISH and WILL AND GRACE, replaced by the even more seasoned Bruce Helford, whose resume goes back to ROSEANNE. Pity that Lerner’s CV is exclusive to the 21st century.
But at least in this case NBC is actually making an effort to do something that appears original. More that can be said for yesterday’s news about yet another revisiting into a world we thought we had had our fill of, as FORBES’ Monica Mercuri shared with gusto:
Disney+ and Hulu have officially ordered a new “Glee” series from 20th Television, more than a decade after the original musical comedy ended its six-season run on Fox in 2015. Co-creator Ryan Murphy has completed a reboot script with Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan and revealed that he’s spoken with approximately 10 original cast members who expressed enthusiasm about returning. Lea Michele is reportedly set to reprise her role as Rachel Berry, while Heather Morris and Chord Overstreet have also hinted at their involvement on social media. An official cast list and premiere date have not yet been announced.
I was indeed a fan, albeit not quite a “Gleek”, ever since Murphy did an elevator pitch of the concept to me while we stood next to each other at an FX urinal. It survived several tragic deaths of cast members like Cory Monteith, Mark Salling and Naya Rivera to reportedly become one of Hulu’s more popular catalog titles (not that you nor I have ever seen anything concrete to that effect). I do know by the time FOX cancelled GLEE it was a mere shell of what it began as both ratings and zeitgeist-wise and its opportunistic rerun cycle to a needlessly aggressive NBCU resulted in one of the most regrettable buying decisions of any cable network–and I’m including my old employer’s foolhardy purchase of DANCING WITH THE STARS reruns in said list. I’ll momentarily buy the spin that’s Hulu’s viewers are Gen Z and Alpha (again, maybe show us something as proof?) but is there really that much curiosity in seeing the old gang as the old guard? And are there really enough Gleeks who actually want to spend all that much quality time with folks they had already tired of all that long ago?
It’s decisions like this by the alleged tastemakers in streaming that have me less surprised than many to see what THE WRAP’s Loree Seitz noted this morning in her must-read INSIDE THE RATINGS column:
When industry insiders talk about linear television’s decline, it’s a big picture overview of the terminal trajectory of revenue and viewership. But that sweeping generalization often ignores the fact that there are creative bright spots in broadcast, not to mention that millions of Americans still tune in every week.
In fact, this fall season has already seen notable rebounds across broadcast networks for both tried-and-true procedurals and unscripted series, as well as a couple new hitters. CBS’ premiere week, which ran Oct. 4-10, saw viewership soar 9% over last year, averaging 4.4 million viewers, while Fox’s season-to-date viewership is up 10% from last year.
Their growth stands in contrast to the soul searching Netflix has had to do this week after a big staff reshuffling, with co-CEO Ted Sarandos admitting the company needed “better execution in the U.S.” when it comes to programming. Given its struggles, should the streaming giant take its cues from — gasp — old-school broadcast TV?
And as Seitz observed from behind a paywall, this was far less due to upticks in live sports and big data panel expansion. This was from new, widely promoted episodes of fresh-ish concepts like MARSHALS, TRACKERS, and a revitalized DANCING WITH THE STARS (first run!)–not to mention second seasons on the same night and at the same time as YAGO from the quietly upticking DOC and BEST MEDICINE. Algorithms and walled gardens take a back seat to actually wanting to come back and again watch shows that were actually missed that only require a commitment of an hour a week.
But just when one might think lessons might have been learned to have enough faith in NEWLYWEDS’ chances for survival take a gander at what NBC is yet again going back to the drawing board as an option. JUST JARED’s Bradley Stern dropped this dime yesterday:
A new version of Coach is in the works at NBC, with Ty Burrell potentially taking on the lead role! The 59-year-old actor, best known for playing Phil Dunphy on Modern Family, is attached to executive produce a reboot of the classic sitcom, according to TheWrap. Ty is also expected to star if the project moves forward, though NBC has not officially ordered the series.
This also isn’t the first time NBC has attempted to revive the show. In 2015, the network ordered a sequel series that would have brought Craig back as Hayden Fox. The proposed series was canceled before reaching television.
On the heels of the failure of NIGHT COURT and its looming reimagination of THE ROCKFORD FILES it’s easy to castigate the “development” team at NBCU for yet again being more inspired by IP than I-deas. A second look does provide a glimmer of hope that at least there’s now a fresh take:
The new comedy will follow a legendary coach who returns to Minnesota to revive the basketball program at his former school while reconnecting with his community. Unlike the original series, which focused on college football, the reboot will center on basketball. The project is being developed as a single-camera comedy, another change from the original show’s traditional multicamera format.
So something somewhat closer in tone to, say, the reimagination of BEL AIR or perhaps the hopefulness of TED LASSO? One can only hope. But in which case–tell us what actual benefits there are to giving it the name of yet another 90s hit sitcom which was yet another rerun disaster? Is anything gained by revisiting Minnesota State–especially since what was a totally fictional name at the time is now how what was once called Mankato State is now referred to? And that’s a hockey school, BTW.
This might have had had me far less snarky had it merely borrowed cast, crew and concept from elsewhere and simply given it a new name to make it seem like something as original as are the shows that are actually returning audiences to “old-school broadcast TV” .
Ya know, like NEWLYWEDS.
Until next time…