Documentaries can tell amazing, compelling stories that you really couldn’t make up (or at least, if you did, you’d be told that the script was far too unrealistic). Sports documentaries often cover the weird, the most unlikely of victories (or defeats).
Tomorrow a documentary about the knuckleball, the most insane pitch in baseball, releases in limited theaters and on video on demand. I’m pretty excited – in part because I love baseball, in part because the documentary follows Tim Wakefield and R.A. Dickey (the best two knuckleballers of the past 20 years), and then again because I love baseball.
There are, they say, three fundamental ways to learn things. You can learn by doing. You can learn by reading. You can learn by watching/listening (lectures also fall into this third category). I’ve always been pretty good at learning by any method, although the “learn by doing” method generally tends to lead to the best results for me.
I’m still relatively new to the world of improv – although I had been a fan of the art (and I do believe it is an art) in the past, I never felt compelled to try it until about two years ago, when I took my first class (I had to convince myself it would help my writing, which, to be fair to past me, it did.) and fell in love with it.
What started as a fun thing to try became a fun thing I do quite a lot of, especially now that I perform pretty regularly on a number of teams around LA (<shamelessplug> including Hooligan, every Friday at iO West! </shamelessplug>).
But there’s a problem with performing a lot. You learn a ton, sure, and you have a good time, naturally, but you stop watching shows. When I started classes, we were required to watch shows throughout the week. Not only was it fun (and we were given passes to watch them for free, a nice perk), but it also taught us what to look for, what to strive for, what the people who are much, much better than us do (and even the mistakes that they still make!). But when you perform a lot, you stop watching. You keep performing, and rehearsing, and reading, but you stop watching.
And that’s sad. Because last night I was reminded how much you can learn by watching.
I had a show (<shamelessplug> Thursday Night Formal, hosted by Corn & Pineapple, every second Thursday at iO West! </shamelessplug>) last night, and we invited a group called Big Bennessy to perform. They’re comprised of veteran improvisers, all very talented, very smart, very funny people.
Watching them put on a show was so much fun, and so educational, it was incredible. I was reminded just how much we learn when we’re watching, whether it’s understanding the structure of a joke, or the way someone remembers to keep acting in a scene even when they’re not involved in the current conversation, or just the sense that if you have something small to do you should just do it, and then when it turns into something else you should let it happen.
I was also reminded that I need to get back to watching shows. And if you like improv, you should, too.
I work in television. That’s something you might or might not know about me.
What People Think That Means: I have a cool job and get to talk to a lot of celebrities.
What It Actually Means: I work on the computer all day and send a lot of e-mails. Some of which are to celebrities… assistants.
There is a bonus, however: I get to watch a lot of television and claim that it’s “homework” or “research” or “tax write-off”.
This also means that I’ve watched as many of the comedy pilots as have been released thus far (either online or on the actual TV). Some shows (Go On, The New Normal) I’ve even seen two!
Based on these, I can now give you my wholly informed opinion of what you should and should not be putting your energy into:
Go On (NBC, Tuesdays 9/8c)
What: Matthew Perry is surrounded by weird people he met in company-mandated grief counseling. Oh, and John Cho is his boss.
Watch? If you really like Matthew Perry. People have compared this to “Community”, as in “it’s like Community but without all the crazy things that Dan Harmon does.” I think the people who have made that comparison decided that because both shows have an Alpha male type not dealing with his emotions surrounded by oddballs that they don’t want to be with (initially, anyway), that they’re the same. They’re not. “Go On” hasn’t yet proven (and it’s obviously still way too early to make a judgement on this, but still) that they can tell a full story for any character other than Matthew Perry’s Ryan. Maybe they’ll get there. But until they do, the two shows are fundamentally different in a way that probably hurts this one.
The New Normal (NBC, Tuesday 9:30/8:30c)
What: A gay couple hires a surrogate to start a family and inherit her, her daughter, and her racist/homophobic grandmother.
Watch? If you really like Ryan Murphy’s sensibilities, because his fingerprints are all over this one (EP, co-creator, writer, director). I didn’t really enjoy the pilot all that much, largely because the characters are painted with a very broad brush (I get it, the grandmother is very racist and homophobic), although, to be fair, there was a lot of story they had to cram in. The second episode, which had a much slower pace, was a little better.
Guys With Kids (NBC, Wednesday 8:30/7:30c)
What: Three guys have kids (two of them have wives, one an ex-wife) and live in the same apartment building.
Watch? If you miss sitcoms that were taped before live studio audiences and tell you that at the start (they did this in the pilot). To be honest, there was nothing offensive about this show at all, although that also means that I really don’t remember much of what happened. I think they learn a valuable lesson at the end, though.
Animal Practice (NBC, Wednesday 8/7c)
What: Justin Kirk and the gang run an animal hospital. And there’s a monkey!
Watch? If you love watching a monkey act like a human. The monkey is very funny. To be fair, there are a lot of funny people in this cast (Justin Kirk, Tyler Labine, Bobby Lee, Betsy Sodaro), so the talent is on the roster. Whether they gel faster than the 2012 Los Angeles Dodgers or not will likely decide the show’s fate.
Ben and Kate (FOX, Tuesday 8:30/7:30c)
What: Slacker brother moves in with single mom sister and her daughter. Chaos ensues.
Watch? If you want to root for the underdog (even with Nat Faxon, who won an academy award for co-writing “The Descendants”, this show probably has the least star power of any that I’ve seen so far). The pilot doesn’t really give a sense of what will happen on a week to week basis beyond our initial basic rules (Ben will screw things up but for a good reason, Kate will forgive him), although it sets up some fun characters to play around with. The cast and crew are talented enough, though, that I’m interested to see what happens next.
The Mindy Project (FOX, Tuesday 9:30/8:30c)
What: A doctor tries to juggle personal life and professional life.
Watch? If you want to prove Fox’s theory of building a powerhouse comedy bloc around female leads apt. This one surprised me. I read the script and thought it was just okay. The preview didn’t really sell me. But the pilot as a whole was very impressive – a lot of the humor relied on timing that didn’t quite read the same on the page or in a commercial. This suggests the potential for great chemistry between the cast (which was on display in the pilot, as well), and hopefully a funny show.
That’s it so far. I’m predicting that by the end of my “give a show three episodes to win you over” rule, the following will still be recording on my DVR:
The Mindy Project
Ben and Kate
…which does not bode well for NBC. Or wouldn’t if I were a nielsen household.
NEXT WEEK: FOX launches THE MOB DOCTOR, NBC launches REVOLUTION, I continue to pine for HAPPY ENDINGS to return.