There were a few choice freshmen comedy picks from the 2011-2012 TV season that I particularly enjoyed watching, including a couple of family themed sitcoms that are bound to still be included on my next season's must-watch list.
While NBC's Up All Night featured regular people who are just funny and find themselves in a lot of funny situations, the ABC comedy Suburgatory serves up the laughs by placing two very normal city people in what can only be described as suburban hell.
Tessa Altman's (Jane Levy) life is uprooted when her father George Altman (Jeremy Sisto) discovers an unopened box of condoms in her room. Deciding that New York City offers too many temptations to a teenage girl, George impulsively follows the suggestion of his friend Noah Werner (Alan Tudyk) to move to the suburban town of Chatswin. As the father and daughter try to settle in their new neighborhood, they soon realize that they have entered the entirely alien world of suburbia. The two stick out like sore thumbs as they find themselves either trying to fit in or refusing to change their city ways.
If you've lived in the city all your life, then you're probably going to want to run away from Chatswin the moment you first set foot in it. All the houses are picturesque with pristine lawns and their inhabitants always on the verge of modeling for a toothpaste commercial with their readSomiles. It's a suburban nightmare that is enough to evoke images of The Stepford Wives or worse, The Real Housewives (the ones that don't fight and always give out plastic smiles to each other while stabbing backs in the process).
Tessa keenly feels the difference from her old life, finding herself being called a lesbian just because she wears boots to school and immediately at odds with school queen bee Dalia Royce (Carly Chaikin), who seems to never run out of pink clothes and devoid of any sense of humor, or brains for that matter. George is also at odds with the suburban life, finding himself the center of uncomfortable attention as a single father, but is determined to stick to his decision of moving to Chatswin.
While both continue to feel like fish out of water, they find themselves establishing actual relationships. Tessa develops a friendship with neighbor Lisa Marie Shay (Allie Grant), who is suffering from an ugly duckling complex because of her mother, and Malik (Maestro Harrell), who is the school's token black kid and has a rather extreme obsession with the TV series Medium. George continues his rather dysfunctional friendship with Noah. But the most surprising connection that both father and daughter made is with Dallas Royce (Cheryl Hines), Dalia's mother and wife to philandering husband Steven (Jay Mohr). As clueless and spoiled as Dallas is, she is actually one of the most genuinely nice people in Chatswin. Her unlikely friendship with George has given him insight about raising a teenage daughter, while giving Tessa experiences that she never shared with her absentee mother. And I also have to point out that the chemistry between Dallas and George was surprising, but was definitely something I learned to appreciate and root for.
But at the core of everything is the relationship between George and Tessa. As much as they butted heads over the move to Chatswin, the two actually share a father-daughter relationship that will always be closer than any parent-child tandem in the suburban town. Yes, Tessa calls her father by his name and seems to treat him more of a contemporary than a father, but the two share a closeness that can only be borne from real affection and having weathered some pretty serious storms together.
While Chatswin will continue to befuddle them both, George and Tessa find themselves in situations that give them a better appreciation of their new home and their neighbors, who aren't as picture perfect as they seem. Their experiences, both the mundane and the ridiculous, make for a pretty great comedy series. You will get plenty of laughs and a sprinkling of awwww moments, but everything is tempered with the occasional challenges that many people experience in real life.
Suburgatory doesn't aim to be raunchy or high brow in its humor. It simply is a show about families and neighbors, both the good and the ones that you don't like but can't really get rid of. And it's just perfect the way it is.
Happy viewing!!Labels: ABC, Comedy, Must-Watch, Suburgatory, TV, TV Series
