Are You There, Comedy? It's Me, Someone Who Wants Good Funny, Not Bad Funny

Laura Prepon: You deserve better comedy roles

During NBC’s forum at last week’s Television Critics Association press tour, a place where the networks attempt to sway TV critics with their hopes and dreams for the remainder of the TV season (I was in creative writing class, so I couldn’t go. Also I am not a “professional” TV critic, so that’s also why I wasn’t there.), Bob Greenblatt didn’t hesitate to acknowledge how far the once-mighty Peacock network had fallen. “We had a really bad fall—worse than I hoped, but about what I expected,” he said, possibly in a mournful tone. When the head of entertainment programming says that, you know his network is in trouble.

This is probably why NBC was very cheerful when “Are You There, Chelsea?” pulled in over 6 million viewers for the pilot on January 11. That’s more viewers than the beloved “Community” and “Parks and Recreation” receive; two comedies so much better in quality, casting/acting, and writing; than this desperate attempt to cash in on the ever-growing popularity of comedian Chelsea Handler.

In the pilot, Chelsea Newman (Laura Prepon) has been charged with a DUI. While in lockup, she promises to vodka (“Are you there, vodka? It’s me, Chelsea?”, which was once the name of the show) that she will change her life around if she gets out of this mess. Her plan is to get an apartment that is 115 steps away from her job at a sports bar. (“If you can’t finish your drinks, our waitress will.”) Her roommate is Dee Dee (Lauren Lapkus), a sweet-yet-strange woman who becomes the designated “weirdo” character. She wears clothes that cover most of her body, is a virgin saving herself for marriage, and does not drink or offend—in other words, the anti-Chelsea. Also, Lapkus has a pair of large eyes ready to pop out of her head, just like Amanda Seyfried. I couldn’t stop focusing on that, which meant I couldn’t concentrate on her performance. Or maybe I am bad TV critic, which is why I wasn’t invited to that fancy press tour.

One pet peeve of mine is that I can’t stand laugh tracks. It’s so bad that I can’t even watch a rerun of old-school sitcoms with the canned laughter. There is canned laughter here. “No!” I said. “You can’t make me laugh and believe that line is funny.” Like clockwork, the canned laughter arrives to irritate me.

Line
“Funny” Line
Canned laughter
Line
Line
“Funny” Line
Canned laughter
“Funnier” Line
Canned laughter
Someone slightly famous enters scene
Applause
Line
"Funny" line
Canned laughter


I did have my reservations about the show before watching, particularly the source of the material. I must admit I was once a big fan of Handler, having discovered her books “Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea?” and “My Horizontal Life” while living in Florida years ago. (The books, along with her stand-up, is the primary source of the show) It was one of the few times I had laughed out loud from reading a book. I even watched her show “Chelsea Lately” on a semi-regular basis. But her routine did grow old for me and I went back to “The Daily Show”.

I couldn’t resist passing up this show, though. After all, there was talk and previews since last summer. The cast changes even made it as news. It looked promising. It looked better than “Whitney”. (And that’s not tough to do.) And Laura Prepon (Donna from “That 70s’ Show”) is a pretty good comic actress who should definitely be in more high-profile roles, like movies, something Handler is now entering.

Handler herself appears in the pilot, but she is portraying Sloane, Prepon’s judgmental sister who is tired of bailing her out of every dilemma. It was strange to watch Handler attempt to not be herself on a show with her name in the show’s title. I was waiting for her to take off that wig she was sporting, pour herself a double Belvedere, and start trashing “Jersey Shore” or Mitt Romney.

While she gets a few funny lines and seems game for anything, Prepon deserves more than being a younger stand-in for an overexposed celebrity. Maybe Dan Harmon can create a role for her where she’s Pierce’s long-lost daughter or involved in a love triangle with Troy and Abed. Or she can be Andy Dwyer’s Burt Macklin’s new crime-fighting partner, Ann Perkins’s old high school nemesis-turned-new co-worker at City Hall, or be involved in a love triangle with Chris Traeger and Ron Swanson (or all these roles in both shows). #