Unhitched: Woman Marries Horse
By fred | March 10, 2008
(S01E02) Before this new Fox comedy from the Farrelly Brothers came to our screens, and based only a a couple of promo clips, I wasn’t too optimistic about this one. But last week I did watched the sitcom, hoping to get surprised, and I was. I was actually surprised because the episode wasn’t as bad as I feared, in fact it even made me laugh a few times and I thought it had potential to become a pretty funny show.
So here we are, with the second episode and our hopes to see it grow into something more, something better & funnier than what the pilot was. It’s only the second episode, but it can already be an indication as what to expect for the future of this show…
Sadly, this week we were in for disappointment. Sure, maybe after the pilot I had made up my mind about what I thought the show might be like, should be like, maybe I had expectations (that weren’t met) and those were not necessarily the ones from the people writing this show, but still, this one wasn’t funny.
Remember what I said, that after watching a couple of promo clips that were completely unfunny I feared this show would be a real mess ? Turns out all those clips had been taken from this episode !
Yes, I wanted this show to be stupid, absurd, and crazy, because there’s a lot of potential there and that’s not the kind of things we already have on TV. If you want a sitcom that’s funny but only with characters and situations that (mostly) feel real or realistic, you got plenty of it : How I Met Your Mother, 30 Rock, The Office… some of the best sitcoms out there are already on this spot, and even Scrubs could be added to the list, because it’s somewhere halfway between realistic and absurd, it relies on JD and his fantasy world to go there.
A show where anything could happen, especially if it doesn’t really make sense, is completely crazy or even stupid, but always definitely hilarious, is something I was hoping Unhitched would become. After all, The Sarah Silverman Program is not on these days, so I miss my dose of crazy funny shit!
But it seems that this shows doesn’t really go there, not really. I remember reading, after the pilot, people complaining about the opening scene where a monkey anally abuses one of the character. That it was offensive, stupid, or put there without any other goal than to remind people this was coming form the Farrelly Brothers. I disagree completely with such statements, because yes it was stupid and yes it’s very Farrelly-esque, but more importantly it was also funny ! Yes, that stupid scene had me laughing.
This week, I didn’t laugh. Not really. I think “bored” would be a better term to describe how I felt while watching it. Some of the stories might have something crazy or stupid that you wouldn’t really find in other shows, except maybe for the air guitarist, but it was just stupid, and not funny. Take Sahgal, that guy had the most annoying story of all on the pilot, with that cliché boring plot where he goes to Vegas with a hooker and by the end of the paid-hour they spent together is willing to ask her to marry him.
This week, it was about the same with his man crush on a guy. It’s lame, it’s something we’ve seen before hundreds of times, it’s not funny, not even close, not ever. This guy is pretty annoying, and it’s not like sitcoms haven’t used somewhat of a odd and not so bright character before, but they always are funny, really funny, the make-everyone-laugh funny, not the make-themselves-and-themselves-only-laugh funny. Say what you want about Joey Tribbiani (or Phoebe), maybe they weren’t always the smartest but they were freaking funny. There was absolutely nothing funny in Sahgal dating the bouncer and telling him why he wants to be his friends. It’s like his “joke”, it’s everything but a joke.
This episode wasn’t all bad, but again for the most part I did not really enjoy it. I liked the opening scene, how Tommy agrees with everyone there and then heads to the bedroom. This was funny, and so was the “break-up” scene between Kate and her air-guitarist of a boyfriend. It was funny, I liked some lines, but it wasn’t really hilarious, nothing to make you laugh out loud, sadly.
I’m not giving up on the show, and I hope Fox won’t either, but I feel that the show isn’t crazy enough, and relies way too much on stories we’ve all seen before hundreds of times. Sahgal story, as well as most of Gator’s story were really nothing new. I sure hope it’ll get better in time, because so far it just doesn’t really work for me.
