TV Review: 'Worst Week'

This is the part where I act like an authority on entertainment, and criticize the work of professionals who are, without exception, more successful than I in the industry in which we both work. Some people would say this is proof I have "balls", or "chutzpah" in Jewspeak. Others would say it's proof I'm a "douchebag". To catch up on any old reviews, you can find the link on the right hand side of the page, or just click here.

The multi-camera sit-com has been dying a long, slow death the past few years, its stale interiors and studio audience laugh track pushed to the side by popular single-camera sitcoms like ’Curb Your Enthusiasm’ and ’The Office’. The single-cam shows have more life (partly because they don’t revolve around a small number of sets), and feel a bit more real, with no audience prompting you when to laugh. They are also able to take their storylines into a wider range of places due to their ability to shoot anywhere, and employ more actors.

But now that the tradional multi-cam sit-coms have largely disappeared (CBS’s ’Two and a Half Men’ and ’How I Met Your Mother’ are two of the last still-popular dinosaurs), a new type of show has emerged -- a hyrbid. These are shows that are filmed without a studio audience, have no laugh track, and can filmed in any number of locations, yet still hold true to many of the old multi-cam-type cast and storylines.

One of these hybrids is ’Worst Week’, an adaptation of a British show (yes, another!), ’Worst Week of my Life’. This one was developed for American TV by Matt Tarses, a former writer for ’Sports Night’ and ’Scrubs’. It plays like an old-fashioned sit-com, with most of the action taking place in one location with a smaller cast of characters, but is shot with a single camera and has a new school life and energy.

The storylines stay within a very narrow framework -- how Sam Briggs continuously stumbles into trouble while staying with his soon-to-be in-laws, either through his own fault, or someone else’s -- but still manages to entertain. In this way, it’s very much like HBO’s animated sit-com ’The Life & Times of Tim’, only with a ton of physical comedy -- usually Sam taking some kind of pratfall or similar embarrassment. Like so:



This routine of poking our lead male character with pins like a voodoo doll for comedic value (or “Stillering”) can grow old quickly. What elevates this above the aveage sit-com, is the perfromances of Kyle Bornheimer and a terrific supporting cast. Bornheimer brings Sam an indefatigable good nature which steers him through even the most embarrassing and frustrating situations. No matter what happens to Sam, he manages to keep a smile on his face, and most of his “accidents” occur because he’s only too eager to help.

Sam’s polar opposite is his finacee’s father, the aptly-named Dick Clayton, a perptual grump, played perfectly by the veteran of both large and small screen, Kurtwood Smith. Smith is great at playing the curmudgeon, and he does again here with Dick, who clearly doesn’t feel Sam is good enough for his daughter, the beautiful and understanding Melanie (Erinn Hayes).

Melanie’s put-upon mother (played fantastically by Nancy Lenehan) also holds Sam at arm’s length, and Sam can’t seem to help from screwing up the Clayton’s house, cars, belongings, and just about anything else he gets close to. But, somehow, we don’t mind watching them all. On paper, we should root for this clutz, this glutton for punishment. Why? maybe the answer lies in the tagline for the show: “Good guy. Bad luck.”

Using the age-old Hollywood scale of judgment -- HIGHLY RECOMMEND/RECOMMEND/CONSIDER/PASS (circle one) -- I rate 'Worst Week':

RECOMMEND