This is the first in what I hope will be a series of posts discussing shows that aren’t giant hits, but should be, based on quality.
Last season, ABC launched “Suburgatory”, a single-camera sitcom about a high school girl (Jane Levy) moved from Manhattan to the suburbs by her single dad (Jeremy Sisto) after he finds condoms in her room. Once in suburbia, she comes across a variety of strange creatures (people), played up to cartoonish perfection by a great cast, including Cheryl Hines, Alan Tudyk, Ana Gasteyer, and Chris Parnell.
“Sounds cute,” I recall thinking, before turning my attention to some of the other freshmen comedies, like “New Girl” or (briefly) “Up All Night”.
(As a general note, the three other new comedies that I enjoyed from the 2011-2012 season – “Bent”, “Best Friends Forever”, and “Don’t Trust The B”, were all mid-season shows, which is why they were not directly keeping me from watching “Suburgatory”.)
But as the season went on, and “Community” went on a now-quaint-seeming three month hiatus, I began searching for a new show to sample. And I had heard good things about “Suburgatory”.
“Seems cute,” I recall thinking, as I watched the pilot episode. It was a well-crafted, funny show, but I wasn’t sure from the pilot whether or not I would enjoy it or whether I would find it a little too hyper-real for my tastes.
But it was good enough that I kept watching. And as the show expanded its world, it got better. More entertaining. The characters became both more cartoonish and more emotionally grounded. Like a good improv scene, they took reality and heightened it to a relatable fiction.
By about four episodes, I was pretty well hooked. By the end of the first season, it joined my “must watch that night” rotation (which is currently populated only by “Suburgatory”, “Homeland”, “How I Met Your Mother”, “Parks & Recreation”, and “Community” and “Game of Thrones” when they return).
And then this season they made what I would consider to be the emotional leap that every sitcom has to make to have a shot at greatness.
Sitcom plots, by their very nature, are slightly insane. They are built on premises that make sense within the world of the sitcom, but often would never occur (certainly not in the form presented) in the real world. This is doubly true today, when most sitcoms now open with a big hook of an idea (for example, “Happy Endings” at its best is a hyper, ADD-infused, UCB-inspired version of “Friends”, but they had to deal with that whole “she left him at the altar” thing to make it seem different at first) rather than being insanely funny (“Cheers” is a great example of this – go back and watch the pilot. It’s streaming on Netflix. Do it now. The article will still be here. Back? Good.) without giant narrative premise.
Because of this, for a sitcom to make the leap, they have to get you to care about the characters. Then, they have to exploit that emotional bond you’ve made.
Although “Suburgatory” had a number of touching, emotional moments, they finally hit it out of the park with this season’s “The Wishbone”, which served as their Thanksgiving episode. Naturally, Thanksgiving brings with it issues of family/visiting family/dealing with your crazy family, so it slides naturally into the wheelhouse of the show.
The episode, however, managed to orchestrate a magnificent, chaotic, brilliant episode, taking a minor, cute story and taking it to an incredibly real and heart-wrenching breakup (and final moment of sweetness between brother and sister Ryan and Lisa Shea), and utilizing the first moment of real contact between estranged mother and daughter, culminating in a beautifully-shot moment between Tessa (Jane Levy) and her mother, Alex (Malin Ackerman), lying on the floor together, at perpendicular angles, the two of them at once incredibly similar and yet headed in such different directions.
This isn’t to say that it’s not a comedy – it’s important to remember that first and foremost, “Suburgatory” is still a comedy, and it certainly delivers on that level. But after taking the emotional leap, “Suburgatory” is no longer just cute. It’s no longer just funny. It’s moving forward, and has the potential to be a great sitcom.
Which is why more people really should be watching it.
