Love Bites aired from the start of June to the middle of July. NBC wanted sympathy for this show. See, the actress they cast as a lead, Becki Newton, she was supposed to play a virgin but the actress ended up pregnant. Oh, boo hoo. Reality, Becki Newton was lousy on the show. That had to do with the writing, yes. Her trying to pick up men -- to 'gina block her friend -- by announcing she was carrying her sibling's child as a surrogate wasn't funny in the least. But it also had to do with Becki Newton. She was lousy.
And NBC can whine all they want about how Becki's pregnancy hurt the show and pretend that was the problem but that wasn't the problem. The problem was no one -- including NBC -- knew what they were doing. This was evident in the ever shifting tone of the show from episode to episode. But more than anything else, it was in the fact that they had a comedy star and didn't even know it.
"Firsts" kicked off the show and, yes, it had Jennifer Love Hewitt playing herself and willing to have sex with a stranger on a plane. Jennifer was very funny but we're not talking about her. She was a guest star and a strong one -- "Firsts" was the highest rated episode of the show's run -- but we're not talking about her.
Pamela Adlon played Constance. She was 'the wife' and not much more in the first episode. She was the better half of Judd (Greg Grunberg). Though the role was grossly underwritten, Adlon played it geniously. She was amazing. Doubt us? That stranger who was going to sleep with Jennifer Love Hewitt? That was Judd. And if Adlon had played her part wrong, if she'd blown the jokes, the entire set up would have been destroyed and the whole time Judd was attempting to hook up with Jennifer Love Hewitt, you would have hated him.
Aldon was comic gold.
And she didn't get pregnant but she did get replaced. By Constance Zimmer who was not funny and couldn't do a thing with the role. Zimmer played a generically written role in a generic manner. Aldon played the same generically written role in an offbeat way, with timing shifts that gave the role life.
To replace her demonstrates sheer incompetence.
And it left the show with nothing worth watching except for Greg Grunberg. And the writers seemed to realize that. So when one episode in the sitcom anthology focused on the gay couple living next door to Judd and Colleen. When the visiting father had problems adjusting to a gay son in a relationship, it was Judd he sought out, not Colleen.
The show really could have been something but NBC never realized what they had from the start and the more they mucked with the show, the worse it got. The network did not know what they were doing and, some would argue, that included putting the show on this summer.
We wouldn't argue that and hope NBC offers at least one new sitcom next summer. And maybe it can be like Friends With Benefits?
Fitz: Aaron, we got to get my mama some ass. Call every middle-aged lesbian you know.
Aaron: Wow. What circles do you think I run in?
The lines should be funny just when you read them. But what makes them even funnier is Andre Holland's single-mindedness as Fitz and Zach Cregger's serious discomfort as Aaron. For that episode, Fitz' mother arrives and seems sad to Fitz who thinks she needs to be in another relationship. In other episodes, Fitz and Aaron will celebrate their roomaversary -- roomate anniversary only to see Fitz explode over Aaron's attempt to big dog him. "We always fight on the holidays," Aaron will explain. But they're best friends and the always make up as well.
Danneel Harris plays their friend Sara, Jessica Lucas plays their friend Riley and Ryan Hansen plays their friend Ben. It's the story of five friends, two of whom are sleeping together and keeping it from the rest of the group.
That would be Sara and Ben. Sara's supposed to be the closest thing to the normal person on the show. She's a doctor, she's forever trying to find a guy worthy of a relationship track so she can get her life on schedule, etc. And if that ever happened, she might be boring as hell. Fortunately, in addition to sleeping with Ben, she's also fretting over her performance in bed (with guys other than Ben) and, when she and Riley try to get to know each other outside the group, she spends a pot-induced evening making out on a couch with a hobo.
She's not the wet blanket, she's part of the comedy. And there's a lot of comedy. For example, she finds Riley trying on bras.
Sara: What are we doing here?
Riley: I have a date with this hot eco-guy.
Sara: You're doing fine up there, why are you stressing about this?
Riley: Well I really like Derek and he's a hardcore breast man.
Sara: God, it must be nice to find a guy who knows what to do with them. Most of them are just squeezing them like they're produce or --
Riley: Batting them like they're cat toys.
Sara: Or the old classic, tuning in Toyko.
Riley: Well Derek's not like that. He treats them with incredible respect. Like they're religious artificats.
Sara: Lucky.
But she's not that lucky. Derek, played by the always hilarious Mikey Day, isn't just interested in her breasts, he's interested in all breasts. And goes into slack-jawed awe when they observe a mother nursing in the park.
Riley's attitude is that everyone has a kink and she just needs to know what the kink is. She explains that to the group of friends when she has Aaron utilize his computer access (a CIA program) to find out more about Derek. He's into La Leche League. Sara points out that's a good thing, breast feeding is normal, though there aren't a lot of single men without children who are strong supporters of breast feeding. Aaron tries to explain what he thinks is going on and no one understands so he has to just spit it out.
Aaron: He posts a lot on breast feeding boards. And his handle is The Great PUMPkin.
Riley: What?
Aaron: I think this guy's a lactater.
Riley: What?
Aaron: He's a feeder.
Sara: What?
Aaron: I don't want to describe this anymore. He wants to latch onto your boobs and make milk come out of them.
Riley, Ben and Sara (in unison): What?
Aaron: Come on, that was clear!
It's a bit more of a kink than Riley was planning on but she decides she should at least try it before ending things with the otherwise perfect Derek. She goes over to his place to tell him and he's very excited. What do they need, she wonders? Derek informs her, "We could use a pump to induce lacation and then we could feed directly." Then he's off to get the breast pump and Riley begins unbuttoning her blouse. Derek returns with the pump and tells her to stop, that she doesn't need to take off her blouse. Riley's confused as to how they're going to do this. "Just make yourself comfortable," Derek says unbuttoning his own shirt and attaching the breast pump to his right nipple, "and I will see if I can get these puppies going."
That's a lot bigger of a kink than she was expecting and she's out of there.
Ben's got multiple problems. He's got a once-a-year hook up that's been going on for over four years and each year the woman arrives promising sex but each year she only takes off one more item of clothing (one year, that was a bracelet). There's also his inability to get phrases correctly which really causes a problem when he's attempting to befriend a co-worker and they argue over the eclairs leading him to suggest that they "bury the beef." She files sexual harassment charges on him.
And when things get too tense, count on Fitz to come to the rescue (of the others and of the laughs). When Aaron can't make headway with a woman that's into Ben, the two guys can't stop arguing leading Fitz to propose that if Aaron's really mad at Ben, that he decides Ben dies. Oh, they're on a dock somewhere in Chicago for this scene and Fitz has gotten Ben to tie a cement block around himself. So if Aaron wants Ben dead, say the word and Ben's in the water drowning. Fitz tells Ben not to worry, this always worked in the Navy. And, sure enough, Aaron decides he can't order Ben into the water. Of course, right after that, the part of the dock where Ben's been standing finally breaks under the strain and Ben -- and cement block -- are sent into the water.
Friends With Benefits is a really great show, funny, alive, different and so worth watching. And though it's very hard to believe that they will ever top the comedic high that they established in "The Benefit of the Unspoken Dynamic" when Riley pulled Sara off the couch and off the guy she was making out with to whisper in her ear only to have Sara exclaim in disbelief, "I'm making out with a hobo!", they actually do top it in "The Benefit of Mentors" (one of two episodes airing this Friday, August 26th during the first hour of prime time).
If the suits knew anything, NBC would have been airing this mid-season (as planned) and not that dreadful show, the worst show of 2011, the so-unfunny Paul Reiser Show. But it's not just NBC that didn't grasp what they had, it's also ABC which originally picked up the show. ABC can rightly argue that the original pilot wasn't as funny as the pilot NBC aired and NBC can rightly argue that they had two actors dumped from the cast and replaced with funnier ones. But that this hilarious show wasn't aired during the regular fall - spring season is just further proof that there is nothing scientific to what makes it on the air and the networks are flying blind.