Don’t Worry, They’re Still Trying Broad Comedies
This season, FOX tried to air some more broadly-appealing
comedies in Grandfathered and The Grinder, to try to balance out their niche
comedies, such as Family Guy and The Last Man On Earth. It didn’t work, but
they are still trying to make it work due to the fact that they gave both new
sitcoms full backorders and new time slots. It has been made clear that FOX has
not given up on the broader comedy style yet, based off the premises of a few
of their shows currently in development. Let’s take a look:
·
Sugarland is a single-cam that is said to
be about a pair of friends who work for difficult managers and are trying to
keep their home life and work life separate. Produced by 20th
Century Fox. That’s all the material that has been released about its content,
so it should be interesting to see how it works out considering it already has
a put pilot commitment.
·
Think Like a Man is a script that FOX has
received for a TV adaptation of Steve Harvey’s book, which was later turned
into a film. As quoted from The Futon Critic, it shows four parts of romance:
“newly married, moving in, breaking up and hooking up”. Sounds a little bit
like Life in Pieces to me, personally, and also has kind of an iffy title, and
a Sony production company name attached (not FOX-produced). I don’t like its
chances as much as Sugarland’s, though Steve Harvey’s name as an executive
producer may help.
·
Untitled Chernins Project is a single-cam
that will be about a hard-working, industrial woman who moves to a rich neighborhood
in Connecticut in order to raise her spoiled nieces and nephews after their
parents left the country after being caught doing unspecified illegal things.
Maybe not that broad of a comedy, but I thought it fit best in this category.
The plotline sounds intriguing to me. It is produced by 20th Century
Fox, and has a penalty attached to the script if FOX decides not to order a
pilot.
·
Untitled Daley & Goldstein Project is
a single-cam that is about a group of adults trying to save their town after a
teenage gang starts to ruin it. It has a script with a penalty attached and is
produced by 20th Century Fox. Does it sound interesting to me? No.
But I don’t need to like a show in order for it to be worthy of making the air,
so who knows.
·
Untitled Elizabeth Beckwith Project is
said to be semi-autobiographical as a workplace comedy set in Las Vegas in the
1970s, where presumably the son works for the dad. I heard every episode will
start with a Patton Oswald voiceover saying, “Back in the 70s…”—wait, no,
that’s The Goldbergs in the 80s. Interesting enough, both The Goldbergs and
this one are produced by Sony. Looks like FOX is looking into getting into the
blast-from-the-past comedy genre? Anyways, this one has just a script and I
grouped it in with the broad comedy list for lack of better option.
·
Weird Like Us is a single-cam that
depicts children rebelling against their beekeeping, anti-mainstream parents by
“going mainstream”. It is produced by NBC Universal Television, and has a
script.
What do you think of these broader comedies? Do some have
more potential than others? Do any look like they can top Grandfathered or The
Grinder’s already-fractional ratings? Let me know in the comments below!