Fall Sitcom Season Premieres: Rated and Ridiculed, by Matt Shirley

As a man who takes his fake, non-paying writing job seriously, I spent hours doing research for this column.  This translates to many lonely nights in front of broadcast television, notepad in hand, ignoring texts from Australian volleyball players inviting me to ‘Anything Goes But Clothes’ parties which I would typically enthusiastically attend.  All this in the name of my readers, and in the name of quality sitcom review.

The following is list of every broadcast television fall sitcom season premiere, conveniently organized alphabetically for your reading ease, and powered by my loneliness.

$#*! My Dad Says, Grade: D

You’d think 26 gay jokes packed into a half hour would be an accomplishment, but no, it’s not.  This show, based on some Internet pseudo-phenomenon that I didn’t really know existed, is not very good.  Somehow they made a television program with only four characters, none of whom are especially likeable. (The annoying girl from King of Queens can still get jobs?) And check out this witty exchange that starts off the episode:

Bitter Father: “You should see my zucchini.”

Unloved Son: “I think I did last night when you answered the door in your jammies.”

Nailed it!

30 Rock, Grade: A

Completely excellent like always.  If you’re not watching this show by now, you hate funny things and laughing and black people (because Tracey Morgan is on it).  Don’t be a racist.  Watch the show.

The Big Bang Theory, Grade: B-plus

There’s something hypnotically pleasing about The Big Bang Theory—It just makes you feel good to laugh at nerds.  The 2010 season premiere has the show moving from Monday to Thursday to be paired with $#*! My Dad Says (good luck carrying that heap of trash) and the show didn’t disappoint.  Call me a sucker for jokes at the expensive of uneducated food service workers but I thoroughly enjoyed the season’s opener.

Community, Grade: C-plus

Betty White guest starred in this premiere, which saw the show inch closer and closer to the edge of Soap-Opera-Trash Ravine.  Leading man Joel McHale has officially dated every female on the show and is unofficially still not that good of an actor.  And while the aged Ms. White delivers some great lines near the end of the episode, the Community crew is a little late on the Betty White boat.  Having her guest star now is kind of like dressing up as Lady Gaga for Halloween two years in a row.

Cougar Town, Grade: B

I’m always surprised by Cougar Town.  Aside from having the worst name in television history, the characters are funny and the acting is solid.  Yes it gets a little GAY! every once in a while but the season premiere was light-hearted and entertaining per usual.

Glee, Grade: N/A

Glee isn’t a sitcom.  It doesn’t try to be funny.  It tries to be a soap opera musical satire about outdated high school clubs.  It succeeded.  And yes I still hate it.

How I Met Your Mother, Grade: D-minus

I lied to you in the intro when I told you I sat in front of the TV all week.  The truth is, I don’t own a TV and do the majority of my television program-watching on my computer.  I say all of that to say this: apparently How I Met Your Mother doesn’t like online advertising dollars because they don’t release episodes to cbs.com and hulu.  Therefore they get D-minus for not turning in their assignment, a grade they probably would have received anyway had I watched the season premiere.

The Middle, Grade: B-minus

This is The Middle’s second season but as I hadn’t seen any episodes in season one, I could act like it was a new show.  The Middle, a show about a group of cave-dwelling midgets (Just kidding!  It’s about a family—shocker) is….quirky.  And kind of weird. And not altogether unpleasant.  While the setting is unoriginal, the characters and dialogue are not, which will probably cause me to watch at least two to four more episodes.

Mike and Molly, Grade: F-minus

Fat boy meats fat girl.

Fat boy falls in love with fat girl.

Everyone else makes tired jokes at fatties.

Matt sighs and changes the channel.

Modern Family, Grade: A

I was scared the MF was going to disappoint this year, since it has become the critical and ratings darling that it probably deserves.  But the season premiere exceeded expectations and was probably within the top 2.5 percentile of premieres this week.   It’s no fun to talk about shows I like, let’s get on to bashing ones I don’t.

The Office, Grade: A-minus

At some point I think I predicted that they would be moving Jim from management back to sales, and I would like to get my pat on the back for predicting that now.  Thank you, thank you.

Steve Carell’s final season spells The Office’s doom but while he still remains, we can still count on some hearty laughs.   Jim being back at his desk revives the dynamic between he and Dwight but it seems that Jim, Pam, and Dwight don’t seem to act very Jim-y, Pam-y, and Dwight-y anymore.  If Carell’s departure wasn’t the show’s downfall, I’m sure that would have killed it eventually.

Outsourced, Grade: B-plus

Outsourced is about a young man who is forced to move to India and run a call center comprised of misfit Indians who know nothing about the product they are trying to sell.  It’s probably the biggest employer of Indian actors since Slumdog Millionaire but twice as entertaining and 50 times more believable.  This is more a commentary on how Slumdog Millionaire kind of sucked, not how awesome Outsourced is but that being said, I think Outsourced was my favorite new comedy.  Give it a shot next time you don’t feel like seeing what kind of unbelievable situations Dr. Grey can get herself into.

Raising Hope, Grade: F-minus-minus

This show is terrible, don’t bother.

But if you do bother, be forewarned that it’s about a kid who has a one night stand with and impregnates a convict, and then that convict is executed and he is left to raise the leftover baby in a home that houses four generations of white trash, three of which are conspicuously the same age.

See, don’t bother.

Rules of Engagement, Grade: B

Completely standard episode about David Spade accidentally banging Putty’s (Seinfeld reference) selected surrogate mother but entertaining nonetheless.  And I dare you to name one David Spade project that isn’t amazing.  Don’t say Joe Dirt, because we all know it was amazing.

Running Wilde, Grade C-plus

Will Arnett is back and…funny….kind of?  This show reminds me of the sitcom Jerry and George create on Seinfeld—the one about the judge sentencing the perpetrator of a crime to be the victim’s butler.  That scenario was a joke about how insane sitcom premises can be but in Running Wilde, they seem to think that that’s exactly how sitcom’s should work.  I can envision the pitch meeting for this show:

Pitch-man: “So this really rich guy has everything except the love of his life, who lives in Africa with some guy and her daughter.  The rich guy knows the girl likes charity work so he gives himself an award for Charity Person of the Year and invites the girl!  Meanwhile the girl’s daughter doesn’t want to live in the jungle anymore so she devises a plan with the rich guy to let her stay in the rich guy’s huge house!  What do you think?”

Executive:  “That is EXACTLY what we were looking for.”

Two and a Half Men, Grade: C-minus

I didn’t watch Two and a Half Men.  Didn’t even try.  I’ve seen it before and I don’t think it ever changes so I cheated on this one.  Give me a break.

For this anticlimactic conclusion, please blame the alphabet.