THE TV COLUMN: Community college kooks register on NBC
Posted: September 17, 2009 at 4:38 a.m.
LITTLE ROCK — Who among us is not a misfit? For what is a misfit but a rugged individualist refusing to be pigeonholed into a convenient, um, pigeon hole?
To quote the poet and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Man is physically as well as metaphysically a thing of shreds and patches, borrowed unequally from good and bad ancestors, and a misfit from the start."
That's enough erudition. I have to throw stuff like that in from time to time to please my old graduate school professors and my son, the Indiana University teacher with his fancy MFA in creative writing.
For our purposes, simply know that misfits make the best sitcom characters.
There were never four such unpleasant misfits as the principal characters on Seinfeld. If left alone with any one of them, you'd run screaming from the room in five minutes.
Only two of the denizens of The Office aren't misfits, and Tina Fey's Liz Lemon is the only normal character on 30 Rock. Still, I sometimes wonder about Liz.
The hit CBS comedy The Big Bang Theory is built around a gaggle of geeky misfits and so is this season's delightful Fox comedy Glee.
NBC has struck misfit gold once again with its new comedy Community. The series debuts at 8:30 p.m. today.
The show's title refers to fictitious Greendale Community College, a bastion of misfits. Within the greater family of outcasts is a tighter band led by former lawyer Jeff Winger (The Soup's Joel McHale).
This gaggle of eccentrics is being labeled a sort of Breakfast Club with comedic overtones. Jeff, who's back in school because his law degree was bogus, creates a study group ostensibly to study Spanish. In reality, the group was a scam so he could cozy up to the group's hottie (the fetching Gillian Jacobs).
The biggest name among the supporting actors is Chevy Chase, 65, veteran of Saturday Night Live and a bunch of silly movies. The rest of the cast is relatively unknown, but the writing is clever, the delivery polished and the end result is I laughed out loud.
The series has a cushy time slot following The Office, so stick around and check it out.
RETURNING SHOWS
Tonight is a busy, busy night in the new fall season. Several old favorites are returning. Here's the poop.
Survivor: Samoa, 7 p.m. CBS. I must confess that my interest in this aging reality series has waned. I haven't watched a complete season since 2005.
The seasons have blurred for me. I can't tell Vanatu from Palau anymore.
CBS has super-sized the cast this season. Twenty castaways will vie for the title and one of them is an Arkansan. Natalie White, 26, is from Van Buren, where she works in pharmaceutical sales. CBS is billing her as "your typical Southern belle who's not afraid to get her hands dirty."
Bones, 7 p.m. Fox. Here's a spoiler: Booth's amnesia following his brain surgery is not permanent.
Here's another. In the fifth season opener, Booth confesses to Brennan that he loves her. Is this the Moonlighting moment that ruins the series? Is this the episode where Bones jumps the shark?
Nope. Tune in to watch Cyndi Lauper play a psychic who knows where the bodies are buried.
Fringe, 8 p.m. Fox. This is my most favorite sophomore series. We now know that there is an alternate universe where Leonard Nimoy lives and Peter (Joshua Jackson) might not be Peter. Or maybe he is. It's getting deliciously weird.
Parks and Recreation, 7:30 p.m. NBC. Some viewers weren't impressed with Amy Poehler and the other wacky misfits in last season's few episodes. Give the comedy another try. I mean, it's set in Pawnee, Ind. We need to encourage any series not set in Los Angeles or New York.
The Office, 8 p.m. NBC. Yes, Jim and Pam are pregnant, but they want to keep the news from the wacky misfits at the office. Think that'll happen?
Finally:
A reader asks how many tuned in to watch President Barack Obama's health-care address to Congress last week.
According to Nielsen, 31.8 million tuned in one of the 11 networks that aired the speech. That's up from the 25 million who watched Obama's July health-care speech, but 39 percent fewerthan the 52.4 million who watched his first joint session of Congress speech on Feb. 24.
The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. E-mail:
Weekend, Pages 30 on 09/17/2009
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