COMEDIES FALL & MIDSEASON 2014-2015

There was a time when I almost exclusively watched comedy series on TV, so it is now painful to watch what the major networks have prepared for this Fall.

First of all, it is surprising to me that multi-cam sitcoms with the laughing track are not dead yet. I thought the finale of HIMYM meant the end of this type of comedy, but I stand corrected. I'll be shocked, if any of the next three shows below will get a second season.

1. The McCarthys (CBS, written by Brian Gallivan) is about an Irish sports-obsessed family, all members of which live in the same place, basically (like they always do in this type of series). In the center of narration is one of the sons who also happens to be gay. Sheldon's mom Laurie Metclaf is playing the mother of the family, that's the only semi good thing I can say about this sitcom after having watched the trailers. 

2. Stand-up comedian with the Mexican roots Cristela Alonzo got her own show on ABC (a channel that seems to focus on minorities this year), ingeniously titled as Cristela, about a woman that wasted six years on studying law without any productive results. The series focuses on how she still lives with her relatives and whatever that implies.

3. Alonzo's colleague and the SNL star John Mulaney also got a semi-autobiographical sitcom on Fox titled with his last name, about what it means to live your life as a comedian. This is what people must have expected from Louie before they watched the trailer or the first episode.

Then we have a bunch of romantic comedies.

4. NBCs A to Z is the classic sentimental comedy with Mad Men's Ben Feldman and HIMYM's Cristin Milioti about two people looking for "the one" and falling for each other in spite of their personal traits.

5. Another NBC show, slightly more bitter, with Ken Marino and Casey Wilson, created by David Caspe (Happy Endings) and Seth Gordon, is called Marry Me. After six years of going out, a couple struggles to pop the question so that it would feel right.



6. Manhattan Love Story (ABC) is somewhat innovative: it's gonna reveal what people think when on a date. The show would have been tolerable if there were any particularly smart lines and the characters wouldn't be such complete idiots, which the workers of television evidently think "normal" people are.  As of now it looks like MLS is based on a number of horrible stereotypes.



7. The modern version of My Fair Lady called Selfie is coming to ABC. It is about an Instagram star who asks a marketing guru to rebrand her in order to get real friends instead of people who just friended her webpage. Features John Cho from Go On.



8. Jealous of the CBS series Bad Teacher, NBC have developed Bad Judge with Fargo's Mrs. Hess -  Kate Walsh, who's playing a reckless individual that discredits yet another noble profession by drinking and screwing around.

The rest of the shows fall under the category that I'd call "WTF".

9. Let's start with CW's creation for the teens Jane the Virgin, which raises questions about the quality of medical help one can get in the US. The person obsessed with her own virginity - courtesy of her neurotic mother, gets accidentally impregnated by her gynecologist. Tam tam tam!

10. Next one is ABC's black-ish with Anthony Anderson and Hannibal's Laurence Fishburne 'bout a black family living in the suburbia and hence losing some of its "blackness".

11. And finally in the nomination "WTF of the year" wins a weird fairytale musical Galavant with Joshua Sasse as the lead (ABC).