Sunday, October 30, 2005

TV Review: Freddie a "full grown mess"

Wednesday night, on ABC, there was actually a scene you could laugh at in the sitcom Freddie. It occurred when Freddie Prinze Jr. and Brian Austin Green pretended to be a gay couple. Brian Austin Green, of the high voice and pop eyes, had to "Nancy" it up to make sure that any viewer watching would understand that there is nothing naturally gay about Brian Austin Green. Freddie Prinze Jr. puckered up his lips and hooded his eyes like he was paying hommage to vintage Travolta. The scene was stereotypical and offensive for a number of reasons, but it was the only one that worked on the entire show.

Puerto Rican Freddie Prinze Jr. (that's the heritage of his choice these days) stars as a half-Italian, half-Puerto Rican guy named . . . Freddie. Getting the feeling we've been here before? Thinking Joey? Oh, you don't know the half of it. Adult female with child living in the home? Check. Freddie owning the residence? Check. Freddie wanting to call the shots? Check. Freddie a buffoon? Check.

It's Joey with less laughs and who would have thought that was possible?

The credits are supposed to imply all the obligations weighing on Freddie as we see him splinter while the theme song announces he's a "full grown man." Sadly, that's the only time the laugh track didn't try to convince us that the show was funny. (All the funnier when you realize the title of that blues classic is "Mannish Boy.")

On the delight-free episode Wednesday night, we had a Halloween special where Freddie took his niece with him (and later two of her under age friends) to see The Rocky Horror Picture. Halloween episodes sometimes attempt to scare and certainly it's hard to find a scarier sight than Brian Austin Green (Brian from Knots Landing, David from 90210) all dolled up in fishnet stockings. When not repulsing you, the show settled for mild irritant.

Such as when Freddie Prinze Jr. attempted to introduce a new catch phrase, "I'm gonna beat you." Which came out sounding like a bad Mr. T imitation and reached it's nadir when he attempted to use it on his elderly grandmother.

The show seems determined to convince that you that Freddie Prinze Jr. is a "full grown man" and presumably a straight one. Hadn't the marriage to Sarah Michelle Geller fixed that?

Apparently not. So Prinze Jr. sports the sort of facial growth that would have Don Johnson running for the electric razor in the eighties. It's not a mustache and it's not really a shadow. Like every other detail in the show, it's overdone in its attempt to convince that you that Freddie Prinze Jr. is a "full grown man." He also favors bland, baggy clothes. However, that might have just been intended as a consolation prize to those forced to view Brian Austin Green's upper thights and belly. (Green, before you crossdress again, get to the gym or don't expose the belly.)

Prinze Jr.'s working through several accents throughout the show, predominately So-Cal --which is surprising since he didn't grow up in California. But sometimes he'll leave that to toss out something resembling a Hispanic accent and sometimes he'll toss out one resembling an Italian one and sometimes he'll grace you with his Mr. T impression. We don't see that as an attempt at multi-culturalism so much as an indication that he has no grasp of his character.

Regardless of which dialect he's using, all lines fall flat. But Prinze Jr. stands there eagerly awaiting the laughter which, thanks to the press of a button, the laugh track does provide.

When another network starts ripping off one of the lowest rated sitcoms (Joey), you've got a problem. But the truth is Freddie Prinze Jr. has a problem.

With three credits (if you're generous) to his name that he can site as hits (I Know What You Did Last Summer, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer and She's All That), Freddie Prinze Jr. became, if not a star, a glossy object that was well known. (The gloss is gone.) Wing Commander and numerous attempts at romantic comedies bombed. Via peroxide and films geared to children (the two Scooby Doos), Prinze Jr. must have given someone the illusion that his career still had heat.

It doesn't. As Prinze Jr. closes in on thirty (next March), he's done all that previous Tab Hunters could do and has reached his sell-by date. Moving from film to TV is an attempt to resurrect his dying career (outside of voice overs) and Freddie plays as if the inspiration for it came in the halls of his talent agency. "We'll remake you! We'll turn you from teen throb into a manly man!"

The transformation isn't taking. The mannish boy still comes off as the soft, safe sort of boy preteens (straight females, gay males) swoon over before they reach the stage where they're actually contemplating doing the deed. It's a safe-sex sitcom despite the crossdressing, gay pretending and the repeated attempts to assure that Freddie has a sex drive. Watching Prinze Jr. attempt to interrelate with the actress playing his niece, we're honestly reminded of Tony Randall's Love Sidney. Give him a mop and he could be the male Hazel.

What he's not is funny. Maybe ABC was fooled by the one-off he did on Friends? Where he played a male nanny that Ross felt was gay? He's hitting the same notes here (all two) and yet he's now supposed to be a "full grown man." It's unbelievable.

Supposedly it's based upon a real time in Prinze Jr.'s life. Well when he moved to California, he lived with friends in the San Fernando Valley. And in 1998, he had a rental in Toluca Lake (shared with a large cast -- none of them family). So we're missing the real time stage where Prinze Jr. was taking in family who'd fallen on hard times while he tried to get his life started. (Freddie is a chef.) Maybe it's really not based on a real time event and that adds to the hollowness of the show?

Maybe we're missing something? But as we know the story, time between film jobs was largely spent watching cartoons and playing with action figures. Not a lot in there to turn out a show about a "full grown man." And not a lot on screen that addresses the life of a full grown man. If this is an attempt to recreate a 'real life time' when, as a child, he grew up in a household of women, he's plays the overgrown boy quite well. "Where are my keys?" he says over and over with none of the hung over affect Jody Watley brought to the line at the close of "Looking For A New Love." Just another kid who stayed up late playing video games and now needs to make it to the mall before he gets fired, if you ask us.

Brian Austin Green can act. But he's lighter than air so he's the perfect prop to shore up Prinze Jr.'s manhood. It's like casting Kathy Kinney in a supporting role to make the female lead look prettier. Green's Saved by the Bell enthusiastic reading of every line may convince some that Prinze Jr. is a "full grown man."

We smirked a little in the lead up to the pretend-we're-gay scene when Green attempted to boast of conquests that never happened the night before and Prinze Jr. shot him down. Not due to Prinze Jr.'s line readings (which were as lively as a Taco Bell commercial -- the one where the guy's confused that everyone thinks he's grilling) but due to the panic Green brought to the scene.

As the father of one of the children Freddie took to The Rocky Horror Picture Show arrived to confront Freddie, and to reveal his own homophobia, Prinze Jr. and Green tried to girl it up (which is the only way TV likes to portray gay men) and it was funny. It was offensive but it was funny because the actors had to really notch it up several levels since they weren't starting from a base of perceived straight masculinity but instead from an asexual base. (Oh the curse of teen boy pin ups.)

Watching them flounce and argue over who was 'the wife,' was hysterical. Not because of the tired lines or stereotypes. But because it was so obvious that the pedi-set had somehow mistaken them for manly men prior to this scene. It was all about as convincing as George Michael's "I Want Your Sex" video.

The rest of the cast. There's a very talented young actress playing the niece. You've got a generic blond woman playing a friend. You've got an elderly woman playing the grandmother who only speaks Spanish. You've got an actress playing Freddie's sister-in-law (his brother died offscreen) who may be a bad actress or may not be. It's hard to tell. At a certain age the Dee and Rog (What's Happening?) dynamic stops working. You would have thought that might have occurred to the writers before they wrote the scenes (yes, scenes, plural) where the adult sister-in-law, mother of the daughter, won't tell Freddie where his keys are.

But feel for the writers. They're stuck singing, "Let's Hear It For The Boy" week after week while a talent agency tries to repackage Freddie Prinze Jr. as an adult actor. David Cassidy, Bobby Sherman, Tab Hunter and countless others have demonstrated that teen throbs do not go gently into the night.

Instead, they hit the desperation phase that tops anything a child actor (including Danny Bonaduce) might attempt. They should scrap the whole premise and instead turn out a comic Sunset Blvd. type show about an aging teen throb, smearing moisturizer across his face, checking his waist in the mirror and lost in the belief that although time has moved on, "the pictures" will come calling for him again. We'd find Freddie Prinze Jr. believable in that sort of role and we're willing to bet most in the industry would as well.



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