What caught our interest in UNCOUPLED was a GUARDIAN slam
that said the show was SEX AND THE CITY for gay men but this time they
didn't have to pretend to be women since times had changed. Huh? We
get it. We made the joke, we're sure, years ago. And we're sure we
credited THE SIMPSONS for the joke since they made it on "Half-Decent
Proposal" back on February 10, 2002. THE GUARDIAN didn't credit, it
just ripped off.
And, thing
is, it's a funny joke -- or was two decades ago -- but it was never
really accurate. Yes, the series was created by Darren Starr who is
(and was then) openly gay; however, Samantha, Carrie, Miranda and Frigid
(oops!) weren't gay men and were not gay men pretending to be women.
SEX AND THE CITY resonated with women. It did so because Darren offered
a more complex look at women than TV had prior -- and because this was a
more complex look at women, many needed to pretend there was something
wrong with it at that time. At that time. THE GUARDIAN needs to be
embarrassed of the review they posted. It reeks of sexism and
homophobia.
UNCOMPLICATED? It just reeks.
No, it doesn't. We couldn't resist.
UNCOMPLICATED stars Neil Patrick Harris. We really could leave it at that.
By
that, we mean, the show focuses on him in the early episodes -- too
much so. It was a rare scene that took place without Neil in it. We
eventually got some. But for far too many moments, every other
character seemed less a character and more of a prop existing solely to
prop up Neil's character If this had been the first eight or nine
episodes of SEX AND THE CITY, we doubt viewers would have flocked to the
show. That said, Neil has a lot more appeal and warmth than Sarah
Jessica Parker. So we put up with Michael (his character) non-stop
moping.
His partner (boyfriends who live together, they never married) Colin (Tuc Watkins) has cold feet suddenly -- as he turns 50 so Colin moves out and breaks up.
You would have thought it was the next pandemic. Or war.
Darren
was smart to cast Neil because there aren't many other actors we stick
around for this long to watch them mope and whine and be depressed and
mope and get angry and mope and mope and mope.
The
good news is that it can never be like this again. Michael and Colin
could get back together and Colin could leave the next day and it won't
be like it was before. There's no shock to a second bailing.
Neil got some good one liners during all of this moping but it was still way too much moping.
And
way too much self-pity. We've all had break ups and, yes, they can be
very painful but, no, everyone around us doesn't have to stop their
world to daily focus on us.
Equally true, the whole Michael is hurt works a lot less when Michael both hurts another person and acts like Queen Priss.
We're
not fond of drama queens -- whether they use the pronouns he and him,
she and her or they and them, we're not fond of drama queens. You may
remember we lost a lot of sympathy for Ryan in SPECIAL when he ignores his boyfriend repeatedly until suddenly wanting to have sex with him -- and have it right then -- and then Ryan turned all priss because he got a bit of fecal matter on his penis.
Something much milder happens to Michael.
He
briefly decouples from the caboose on the pity train long enough to
meet Luke -- a 3rd grade school teacher played by Dan Amboyer. Luke is
wonderful and great for Michael's ego . . . until a friend puts a bug in
Michael's ear -- six days in a row, isn't that a lot to spend with
someone. Michael dismisses it because they'll be apart the next night
due to the poker game. But then Michael invites Luke to the poker
game. And Luke wanting to be the couple they've been being for a week
but, now, in front of Michael's friends leaves Michael tense. Luke and
he are discussing everyone while doing the dishes after and suddenly
Luke farts.
And.
That.
Is.
It.
He breaks up with Luke on the spot.
Luke can't believe it.
Nor could we.
We
couldn't believe that someone in the NYC gay scene -- where what blow
jobs were to the 20th century, tossed salads are to the 21st one --
would be such a prude. And we couldn't believe it as Luke expressed his
disbelief and Michael kept insisting that they just met, that this was
no relationship, they just met.
Considering all the moping from Michael that preceded this moment, he didn't not come off well.
If you think too much about it, Michael doesn't come off well a lot.
He seems to believe he's a top. His friend Stanley (Brooks Ashmanskas)
challenges Michael's self-description as a top. Michael insists he is
and that versatile is not the label because it doesn't apply to one time
20 years before. Yet Michael comes off like a bottom. For example,
ER's Goran
Višnjić is shown an apartment by Michael and Suzanne (Tisha Campbell)
and, following the accidental exchange of a dick pick, he begins texting
Michael. The two quickly end up in bed together and we got the
impression that Goran was playing the top. Then Michael's father fixes
Michael up with his dermatologist. And they're going to have sex. And
the doctor assumes Michael's the bottom -- that's why he asks him to
roll over. Michael does -- a lot quicker than we'd expect a top to --
but then begins to whine about the size issue and how he might not be
able to handle it. Because the doctor is hugely endowed and because
he's a dermatologist, he's gotten used to this sort of reaction and his
answer has been botox -- injected into the hole. Suddenly, it's all
off. Michael's in a panic. No, his hole might gape and for how long
and -- Again, Michael really seems to be a bottom and he really seems to
be embarrassed about being a bottom.
You
may be wondering when the moping comes in? Constantly. Anytime
Michael's not attempting to live out the Beach Boys' "I Get Around," he
can be found moping. At once point, he manages to do both. He hooks up
on the street with a stranger -- a younger stranger. They go back to
the younger guy's place and Michael wants to know where the condoms
are? (Wouldn't a top carry condoms if they were supposed to be used?)
The guy tells Michael that he's on prep and this and that and Michael
goes off and transforms . . . into Will Truman on WILL & GRACE.
Specifically, he's Will in "Daddy Issues" when Will lectures
millennial Ben Platt. But there, it made some sense. Like the young
man, we're confused by Michael climbing on the cross of condoms -- and
confused long before he brings up the AIDS quilt and left wondering if
Michael truly believes that wearing a condom in the past has made him a
heroic character?
Stanley's
an interesting character and is that long before he faces a health
crisis. Emerson Brooks probably essays the most complex role -- a
player who, too quickly for the show, has realized all that is wrong
with him and his life. He, Brooks and Tisha Campbell make for a solid
cast. But Marcia Gay Harden's Clair has already exhausted our
patience. We don't find her funny when she's making her racist remark,
for example. Someone seems to think having this rich and rude White
woman on the show is somehow needed or funny. Do they think it's Karen
Walker? Megan Mullally found that role within two episodes and she
added much more heart to it by then that Harden has in her full season.
She does not fit with the series. While it is funny when Tisha
Campbell gets off her line about needing to talk to Clair about consent,
it really isn't funny when Clair grabs Suzanne and kisses her (Clair is
posing as a lesbian to make her husband jealous). Maybe it's all the
liberties that White Clair has already taken with African-Americans
Suzanne and Mia? Maybe it's the fact that she was Suzanne and Michael's
boss and has forced friendship (or her idea of it) onto them? It's
just not that funny nor is she.
Tisha is and the smartest move Darren and co-creator Jeffrey Richman
was casting Neil and Tisha as best friends. They have a real chemistry
and they're both warm and appealing. Next season will hopefully
involve less moping and involve more efforts at beefing up storylines
for the ensemble. UNCOUPLED has a great deal to offer. No, it is not
SEX AND THE CITY (nor is it trying to be -- except possibly Clair who
comes off like an unsexy and cold Samantha wanna-be -- if that's what
they're going for, recast the role with Kim Cattrall ). But it could be
something much better -- provided we're done with the moping.