Round Two: Up All Night & Free Agents

Up All Night: Season 1, Episode 2 “Cool Neighbors” (C+)
Free Agents: Season 1, Episode 2 “What I Did for Work” (D+)

I felt that it would be economical and useful to review these two programs together since someone paired them up, and watching them back-to-back creates plenty of parallels between them for me. On top of that, I don’t have much to say, good or bad, about the two installments, but don’t want to abandon reviewing them just yet. The 8pm leader is a show I want to like, but it’s just not creating a compelling enough universe in which its characters can live. Applegate and Arnett aren’t the problem, but they’re also not the solution. Whereas other ensemble sitcoms accomplish so much in twenty short minutes, this show barely did anything and stuck to just one storyline, which is Reagan and Chris’ desire to be liked by their neighbors gone horribly wrong. That was predictable and not as amusing as it should have been, but what’s really grating is the entire character of Ava, who should be good but just comes on too strong. She’s not germane enough to the show, and to have her play such a domineering, distracting part isn’t good for the show. The latter series actually improved slightly in its second installment, if only because it managed to accomplish a decent amount in its half hour, handling two major plotlines while moving ahead the background story of Alex and Helen’s relationship. Seeing Fred Goss as a businessman felt strange because he usually plays loveable losers, and the show was actually doing okay until the women were revealed to be prostitutes. Azaria just doesn’t have the right charisma to play this part, and Hahn is trying her hardest but working with so little. I find Emma and her utterance of “Hi” to be unbearably grating, and she’s a notch above the male support. I don’t expect the latter show to improve, but I do hope that the former can find its footing.

Pilot Review: Free Agents

Free Agents (NBC)
Premiered September 14 at 10:30pm

I’ll start off by saying that this show didn’t look good. I try not to judge anything based on its promotional material, but sometimes it’s hard not to do that when it’s so blatantly thrown at for months. This friends-with-benefits theme has been done to death recently with two theatrical releases in the past year and NBC even airing its own show titled “Friends with Benefits” through last week. This show could have distinguished itself by building off its name and having its characters be secret agents, but alas, that’s also an overdone subject. So here we have the umpteenth NBC remake of a British show, something the network has failed at far more times than it has succeeded. This one is more notable because it stars Hank Azaria, who I will say is capable of carrying a show, as evidenced by his Emmy-nominated turn on Showtime’s “Huff.” That was a far more complex, layered, and dramatic role, whereas there’s absolutely no substance in this part. The fact that he breaks down crying within minutes – almost seconds – of the episode is not a good sign, and things only get worse from there. Kathryn Hahn has proven herself to be a talented scene-stealer on “Hung” and in “How Do You Know” and “Our Idiot Brother,” and, honestly, she’s not so bad on this show. But her part doesn’t have much depth either, and the combination of Alex and Helen is just boring. It’s not that they don’t have chemistry, but rather that the way their relationship plays out is simply uninteresting. It could get better, sure, but all of the supporting characters are annoying and there isn’t much hope.

How will it work as a series? Not well. The premise is paper-thin, and if they’re already sleeping together, where is there to go from here? The only real intrigue is going to be keeping their affair secret from their co-workers, and that’s sure to bubble over sooner rather than later. I can’t imagine what the scripts for subsequent episodes look like since this show doesn’t have much of a direction.
How long will it last? This show lost an alarming portion of its lead-in’s audience, though the true test will be once it moves to its 8:30 timeslot this coming week. I’m pretty sure, however, that it doesn’t have a chance, and it’s easily going to be this year’s “Hank,” a show with a (decently) big star that wasn’t ever really going to succeed but still managed to fail so tremendously and quickly. I’ll be very surprised if this one is still on the air in November.

Pilot grade: D