Will Arnett and Keri Russell create a great partnership in this new series about people trying to change each other. With Keri Russell revealing talent as a straight to Will Arnett's clown, the chemistry flashes as they display beautiful timing.
They play two high-school sweethearts who just couldn't reconcile their complete ethical polarity who decide, through a nicely bizzare series of circumstances, to live together. After years of working to preserve the ancient culture of a Amazonian tribe, Emmy (Russell) decides to take the fight to the executive suite and visit Steve
(Arnett) in the hope that her pleas overcome his familial greed and entitlement. There's a bunch of other characters, of whom the only standout is Emmy's daughter, Puddle, who narrates the show. Despite her lack of manipulation training, also known as middle school, the young Puddle enlists Steve and friends and manages to convince her mother to stay.
This premiere was all about setup and backstory and as a result was a bit clunky in places; it is difficult to be funny under the weight of all this required content, but there were a few great jokes and visual puns. Shows like Malcolm in the Middle have broken audiences of the habit of requiring all their context up front, so it would have been more intriguing to simply start at the point where a single man, infantilised by his wealth, has a single mother and her teenage daughter living in the treehouse in his garden.
This is precisely the type of setup that a good comic partnership needs to riff endlessly and entertainingly, and that is what will have me watching the next episode, probably with unreasonably high expectations. With a good straight in Russell, Arnett can let his creativity run wild without losing the audience. She makes him look funnier, and that is in itself a talent and a generosity that does Russell enormous credit. Her prowess will make sure she is offered work for many years to come no matter what the fate of this series.
All this plotting, scheming, and organizing to adjust someone else's perception of the world is an apt theme for our society. Politicians, advertisers, and think tanks get paid for it, yet there is no clear consensus on how to do it properly. Women in particular have been working on the problem of changing their husbands for hundreds of years without clear success. Setting loose some comedians on the material may even generate some good ideas. High hopes for this one. by Joanna Fletcher.
They play two high-school sweethearts who just couldn't reconcile their complete ethical polarity who decide, through a nicely bizzare series of circumstances, to live together. After years of working to preserve the ancient culture of a Amazonian tribe, Emmy (Russell) decides to take the fight to the executive suite and visit Steve
(Arnett) in the hope that her pleas overcome his familial greed and entitlement. There's a bunch of other characters, of whom the only standout is Emmy's daughter, Puddle, who narrates the show. Despite her lack of manipulation training, also known as middle school, the young Puddle enlists Steve and friends and manages to convince her mother to stay.This premiere was all about setup and backstory and as a result was a bit clunky in places; it is difficult to be funny under the weight of all this required content, but there were a few great jokes and visual puns. Shows like Malcolm in the Middle have broken audiences of the habit of requiring all their context up front, so it would have been more intriguing to simply start at the point where a single man, infantilised by his wealth, has a single mother and her teenage daughter living in the treehouse in his garden.
This is precisely the type of setup that a good comic partnership needs to riff endlessly and entertainingly, and that is what will have me watching the next episode, probably with unreasonably high expectations. With a good straight in Russell, Arnett can let his creativity run wild without losing the audience. She makes him look funnier, and that is in itself a talent and a generosity that does Russell enormous credit. Her prowess will make sure she is offered work for many years to come no matter what the fate of this series.
All this plotting, scheming, and organizing to adjust someone else's perception of the world is an apt theme for our society. Politicians, advertisers, and think tanks get paid for it, yet there is no clear consensus on how to do it properly. Women in particular have been working on the problem of changing their husbands for hundreds of years without clear success. Setting loose some comedians on the material may even generate some good ideas. High hopes for this one. by Joanna Fletcher.
