Arrested Development cast member alert! Last night, ABC sneakily debuted (more on this later) its new mid-season comedy, Miss Guided, starring Judy Greer, a.k.a. Kitty, George Bluth’s crazy assistant from A.D. (say goodbye to these!) Now before I jump into my analysis, let me remind you readers of an important Media Maven tenant: Thou will not judge a series by its pilot, a.k.a. The Arrested Development rule. As I mentioned in my post about the pilot of now-canceled Bionic Woman, A.D. had a pretty laughless pilot, in which all the characters and the arc of the series were established. Once this intro crap was out of the way, the series could begin in earnest. Will this be the case with Miss Guided? Read on and find out!For the time being, as I first dissect the episode, let’s assume the series itself going to resemble the pilot in terms of tone, style, and narrative. This assumption will allow me to draw broader conclusions about the series as I discuss the specifics of the pilot. And so…
1. Judy Greer — Either she had plastic surgery or she was made to look purposefully ugly on everything else she ever did (“have we done up off?”) because Judy Greer looks quite lovely on Miss Guided, where she plays the awkward yet positive Becky, a young high school guidance counselor working at the very school she once attended in her extremely dorky days. Becky is easy to like — sweet, intelligent, self-aware and shy. She’s the quintessential shy sweetheart. However, you’ll notice I didn’t use the crucial comedy word: funny. Like 30 Rock’s Tina Fey, Greer is the quirky yet lovable straightman (woman) on this program. But where Fey is not the complete focal point of the show (it’s not called The Liz Lemon Show), Greer is. Thus, where Fey can get away with the dropping a few comedic zingers from episode to episode and allowing Tracy Morgan, Alec Baldwin and the rest of the gang to shoulder the bulk of the laughs, Miss Guided is ALL about Becky. If it’s all about Becky, she better be funny, right? Well, she isn’t. Ok, then. At least the supporting characters must all be funny then, right?
2. The supporting cast — The supporting cast of this show is NOT funny. Not in a “ouch, this is awful comedy” not funny, but in a “oh, they’re serious?” not funny. Brooke Burns is smoking hot as Becky’s high school nemesis who returns to teach at the same school, but if there’s one thing I know, it’s that the former host of NBC’s short-lived reality series Dog Eat Dog is no Lucille Ball. Also, Becky’s love interest, mechanic-turned-Spanish teacher Tim, is about as bland of a love interest as you could possibly get. He has no personality, but is a very nice guy. Wow, sounds like a winning formula for COMEDY. You’ve also got 30 Rock and SNL-vet Chris Parnell as the school’s weirdo vice principal. News Flash to the world: Chris Parnell is not funny. His comedy friends throw him some bones from time to time (his cameo in Anchorman, his recurring Dr. Leo Spaceman on 30 Rock), but if he was really good, he would already be doing something more worthwhile. ABC is where comedy goes to die, and so it appears as if Chris Parnell has finally recognized the limits of his talent (or lack thereof, as it were). There’s also some old black guy as the school principal, but he’s about as funny as a wall calendar; not the funny ones with swimming nuns or something, but the plain ones with only dates. Terrible.
3. The format — The show’s format is extremely weird, and in my opinion, off-putting and ineffective. Half the show is told through normal action, but the other half is told through strange, direct camera addresses. Becky or Tim or whoever will simply stand somewhere and address the camera, filling us in on some thought process or bit of action that took place of screen or the inner emotions of a character. This is a TERRIBLE way to do a television show. What kind of “misguided” device is this? Instead of showing me the characters’ emotions on-screen through action and organic development, you’re going to stop the story and have them flat out tell me what’s going on? There’s a reason no other show (at least none that I can think of) has ever used this device. We’re not talking Zach Morris 30 second addresses at the beginning and end of the episode, and we’re not talking about Earl Hickey or Kevin Arnold-esque narration. We’re talking about 6-8 separate, cut scenes used solely to progress the action of the story through explication, with several different characters getting a crack at these weird “break the fourth wall” monologues. When I watch television, I want the story to capture and engross me. I don’t want to be talked at or explained to.
4. The tone — Even thinking about it now, I have a hard time nailing down the tone of this show. I don’t think it quite knows what it wants to be. The funniest parts of the show are the brief cutaway scenes, a la Family Guy, in which a character will reference something, the scene will cut to that funny something, and then cut back to the actual narrative. Ok, that smells like comedy to me. But then we’ve got the unfunny lead, the most cliched love triangle of all time, and the saccharine relationship between Becky and her students. Smells like terrible ABC romantic drama/comedy to me. Picture Ugly Betty without the funny supporting cast, the heightened world of fashion, or critical acclaim. Yikes.
5. ABC — There are some things ABC does well. Comedy is not one of them. In fact, I can’t think of a single legit comedy I’ve ever liked on ABC. Can you? How can Miss Guided hope to be funny if its produced by the same people who gave you According to Jim, Dharma and Greg, and From the Underbelly? The jokes are hopelessly broad, the physical comedy groanable, and the dialogue flat and dull. Aside from a few funny cutaways, the show was stale and tired. I felt like I was watching a show that was written in 2002, and it wasn’t funny then either.
Conclusions: Because she’s an Arrested alum, I’ll give the show two more tries. I think there must be some reason that the folks at ABC dumped the pilot at 10pm on a Tuesday night with little fanfare before the show begins back to back episodes in its regular time on the super Thursday night at 8 pm slot. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that the pilot was a victim of The Arrested Development Rule and just needed one episode to firmly plant its feet before taking flight. But given ABC’s poor track record and the inauspicious bad comedy in the pilot, I wouldn’t be surprised if Judy Greer asks the audience to say goodbye because its probably the last time we’ll ever see these…er, I mean her, again.
