Let's Rank the Best and Worst New Comedies of the Fall 2014 TV Season
The influx of new comedies that appears on our TV screens each fall should be the equivalent of a clown car barreling into our living rooms, eliciting nonstop laughs. Unfortunately, the 2014 crop is more akin to a Ford Fiesta, filled with only one or two funny guys lost among corny uncles, grumpy cab drivers, and serial killers. It's a real cornucopia (Thanksgiving buzzword!) of quality, is what I'm saying.
But with all these choices comes the opportunity for some brave man, dare I say a demigod among mortals, to step up and definitively organize the new fall comedies from best to worst, while also assigning varying degrees of watchability. And in the absence of someone like that, my flabby, puny self will step in. I've been watching all nine of this fall's new network comedies plus one new cable comedy, and I've ranked them in order of excellence. Read the list below, agree with it because it is THE BEST, and then praise my judgment in the comments. OR, read the list below, disagree with it because it is entirely wrong, and let me know in the comments how you would rank 'em. Whichever you want. It is a free-ish country!
[Editor's Note: Here's how last year's comedies stacked up.]
THE GREAT
Last year, we were blessed with two comedies that were good enough to qualify as "great": Trophy Wife and The Goldbergs. But great new comedies are so 2013, and sadly, none of this year's newbies have achieved that level of quality. Damn you, comedy gods!
THE GOOD
1. Black-ish
ABC's new family comedy Black-ish came close to being the only new fall sitcom to earn a "great" rating, but recent episodes have knocked it down to being merely "good." In fact, its stock has dropped enough in recent weeks to threaten the show's hold on the top spot. But some of early episodes were so wonderful—particularly "Pilot," "The Nod," and "Crazy Mom"—that in the face of so much not-wonderful competition, it still sits atop this list. The success of a comedy is often dependent on its cast, and Black-ish has the best ensemble of all of this fall's laughers, with the always great (even on Dads With Kids) Anthony Anderson as hypocritical keeping-it-real dad Andre Johnson leading the way. But Tracee Ellis Ross as Rainbow Johnson deserves some consideration come awards season, and all four of the kids are not only delightful, they seem like they've been doing this for years. Series creator Kenya Barris has a knack for looking at race the right way; he isn't afraid to put everything out in the open in order to make fun of it, and Black-ish knows that it's a family comedy first. That's the reason it works.
STATUS: Picked up for a full season!
2. Selfie
You aren't as surprised as I am that Selfie ended up so high on the list. The first time I heard Eliza mutter the word "Instagram" (which was probably in the first three seconds of the pilot), I wanted to murder this show in front of its parents—that's how bad the first impression was (Kaitlin was more forgiving). But series creator Emily Kapnek developed her characters quickly, just as she did on the late Suburgatory, and suddenly Selfie's world began to expand. Even Eliza became... hmmm, likable isn't the word, so let's go with "interesting," thanks in large part to a self-aware and over-the-top performance by Karen Gillan; her "partnership" with Henry (John Cho) was one of the most compelling and curious pairings of the season. Meanwhile, Eliza and Henry's boss Sam (Homeland's David Harewood) turned out to be one of the funniest new characters of the fall, and the show impressed us by confidently developing his interracial relationship with his wife. But Selfie's most inspiring feat was that it vastly improved after its pilot, and that's the best indicator that a comedy has legs. Unfortunately, viewers didn't seem to think so. I blame Selfie's awful title and horrible, disgraceful theme song for its low ratings and quick cancellation.
STATUS: Canceled.
THE WATCHABLE
3. Marry Me
This show, I tell ya! Marry Me was the toughest comedy to place because it kept inching its way up this list, spot by spot. The series' first three episodes were more like Meh-ry Meh, thanks to the looming threat of untapped potential from series creator David Caspe and the cast. But Episode 4, "Annicurser-Me," locked all the characters in a basement while flashbacks revealed that Annie and Jake's relationship wasn't cursed—it was just spoiled by their bumbling friends. That was followed by another winner in "Thank Me," leading me to believe that Marry Me has possibly found the key to unlocking the magic that lies within its Happy Endings pedigree. This show is trending up fast. The scary thing is that Ken Marino—the funniest person in the cast—is probably the show's weakest link. If he gets going, Marry Me could be great.
STATUS: NBC ordered five extra episodes (so it almost has a full-season order).
4. A to Z
Guys, I don't know if the recent rom-sitcom trend is a thing that can actually work on television, because a series that's merely about being in a relationship can't go that far. But A to Z had a pair of likable leads and the indie success of (500) Days of Summer to siphon from, so it gave that barebones premise a shot. Unfortunately, the show is frequently cutesy to a nauseating fault, chronicling the adventures of new lovebirds Andrew (the A, played by Ben Feldman) and Zelda (the Z, played by Cristin "The Mother" Milioti) as they experience the ups and downs that befall every romantic relationship. The problem is that each episode features a down as its conflict and an up as its resolution, and who wants to watch an ongoing show about a doomed relationship& (we know it won't work out, given the narration in the opening sequence and the start-to-finish set-up). And then there's the weird workplace comedy element, which focuses on Andrew's boss and creates an imbalance. But the show's biggest crime is Andrew's BBF (bearded best friend) Stu, a horrible character and terrible human being whose spats with Zelda's pal Steph are still being mined for zero laughs. Also, how sad was that Ray Parker Jr. Halloween jam?
STATUS: Canceled (but finishing out its initial 13-episode order).
5. Cristela
Cristela is the true midway point of this list. It's not great or even what I'd call good, but it's entirely harmless and it knows what kind of show it wants to be. A Friday-night, multi-camera sitcom about a Mexican-American woman who's struggling to become a lawyer while her immigrant mother talks about life in the village probably isn't targeted at me (I don't want to be a lawyer), but I can see how other people might dig it. And Cristela's titular star, Cristela Alonzo, is a whirlwind full of charm and energy who rivals a game-show host on speed. Cristela is a competent throwback family comedy, and that's all it needs to be.
STATUS: Freshly picked up for a full season!
6. Benched
The lone cable entry on this list, Benched proves that not every cable series is better than its network counterparts. Benched should be good; it has Happy Endings' Eliza Coupe as its lead character, Nina, a lawyer who gets dumped by her boyfriend and then dumped by her corporate law firm, forcing her to take a job in the public defender's office. It also has... Oscar from The Office and Ted from Better off Ted? A courtroom setting and oddball criminals should combine to create insta-comedy, but Benched is portraying Nina as damaged goods due to her break-up while also portraying her as too good for her new job, and that makes her difficult to root for. Also, I'm a little concerned that Benched is still on while USA's far-superior Playing House is looking like it's canceled. Objection!
STATUS: No word from USA yet.
THE BAD
The McCarthys is a show about a loud, tightknit, sports-obsessed Boston family with a gay son, and that's it. There's nothing horribly wrong with the show, but it exists firmly in the well-trodden, white-bread territory of all the dysfunctional family sitcoms that came before (oddly enough, it's somewhat reminiscent of a toned-down Married With Children). At times, it's genuinely funny, like when Laurie Metcalf's Marjorie recalled stealing money from her old, blind grandmother in the show's most recent episode. But there's no nuance to the characters, and at some point during each episode, all the ragging on each other morphs into saccharine speechifying about how they really love each other. Aww! I thought (and hoped) we'd see more of the gay son, Ronny, actually coaching basketball—and when we did, it was great—but for the most part, The McCarthys concentrates on the family sitting around ma and pa's living room, embodying their one-note personalities.
STATUS: There's no word from CBS yet, but The McCarthys' ratings are pretty bad, and I'm betting cancellation is nawt fah away (that's a Boston accent).
Manhattan Love Story had plenty of haters and then some, as many bemoaned the show's antiquated gender roles, blatant sexism, and icky facial hair. They weren't wrong, but I initially found myself defending the series. Its gimmick—viewers were privy to the main characters' internal monologues and thoughts, which were revealed via voiceover—had lots of potential, despite being very unpolished at the outset. Sadly, it turns out that audible thoughts are only funny when they're dark, knee-jerk observations, and most of Manhattan Love Story's Jake and Dana deepest secrets were ripped from the pages of Maxim and Cosmopolitan. If you want to see how internal monologuing is done, watch the incredibly hilarious British comedy Peep Show.
STATUS: First cancellation of the fall season.
THE HORRIBLE
9. Bad Judge
NBC must've given this show the greenlight based on talent alone, or maybe it lost a bet while it was drunk, because there's no other reason for Bad Judge making it to air. Kate Walsh was the star, and Anne Heche and Will Ferrell were on board as producers. The network couldn't possibly have read the initial script, which was such a mess that the pilot was reworked like crazy after it came out a jumbled mess. And even though the one that eventually aired was more focused, it still threw too many wacky sitcom premises against a Teflon wall, including some silly plot about Walsh's bad judge mentoring a foster kid whose parents she put away. The kid was never heard from again (as in he didn't appear in any more episodes; he's not dead, as far as I know). Bad Judge started rolling the cameras before it even knew what it was, and the result was downright awful.
STATUS: Canceled (but finishing out its initial 13-episode order).
TO BE BURNED IN A GARBAGE HEAP
10. Mulaney
Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch x infinity. Word on the street is that former Saturday Night Live writer John Mulaney is quite the stand-up comedian, so giving him his own show seemed like a natural next step, given his history with television (he's also regularly featured on Kroll Show). Unfortunately, that turned out to be the wrong decision. In fact, it was the worst decision. Mulaney can't take all the blame for this disaster, but he deserves the lion's share of it, especially since he's the cast member who acts most like he's on a sitcom... from the early 1980s. And despite borrowing from so many hammy sitcoms of yesteryear, Mulaney's writing and pacing makes the show feel like everyone involved the series has never seen a comedy in their lives. Unfunny, uncomfortable, and unfixable, Mulaney wins the season's worst new comedy award in a landslide.
STATUS: Fox trimmed Mulaney's episode order and halted production; then the show was demoted to an earlier time slot. It's as good as canceled
How would YOU rank this season's new comedies?
