BEN AND KATE: First Thoughts on FOX’s Fractured Family Sitcom Awesomeness

Ben and Kate (2012) – Season 1, Episodes 1-4 – Starring Dakota Johnson, Nat Faxon, Lucy Punch, Maggie Elizabeth Jones, and Echo Kellum.

America, why are you not watching this show? Seriously, it’s in moments like this that I hate you. The only reason that I can imagine you’re not watching this show is either because you don’t know about it, or because you don’t like to laugh.

BEN AND KATE is a seriously funny show.

The premise here is that irresponsible Ben (Nat Faxon) has returned home and moved in with his responsible younger sister, Kate (Dakota Johnson, daughter of Sonny Crocket and Melanie Griffith). The comedy revolves around the juxtaposition of Ben and Kate’s opposite approach to life – Ben the dreamer and Kate the responsible one. The series regulars are rounded out with Kate’s smart daughter Maddie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones), her British co-worker BJ (Lucy Punch), and Ben’s best friend, Tommy (Exho Kellum). All five actors can be counted on to generate laughs, and BEN AND KATE wonderfully contrasts the absurdity of Ben, BJ, and Tommy with Kate’s uptight, conservative approach to life.

It’s understandable that Kate is the grown-up in the show as she’s the one with a daughter, but the program beautifully balances her and Ben’s strengths and weaknesses. At its core, BEN AND KATE is about how Ben’s dreams never come true because he gives up on them too quickly while Kate’s dreams have been buried beneath her responsibility. Balance is really key to this show – take episode 4, where Ben decides to throw Kate the 21st birthday party she never had because she was pregnant with Maddie. For her 26th birthday, then, Ben has a house party, inviting Kate’s crazy best friend from high school. Ben and BJ end up ditching the party so they can go steal a tree from Ben’s ex-girlfriend’s house, while Kate and High School Pal go downtown to get crazy. BJ ends up sticking up for Ben with his ex-girlfriend by making out with him in front of the ex, while Tommy again gives voice to his long-time desire for Kate. He doesn’t get to make with her, but at the end of the episode, she gives him a kiss on the cheek and a few words of encouragement, while BJ’s make out session with Ben is forgotten.

If I tune in to a random episode of a sitcom, I just want it to be funny, but if a show wants me to stick around long-term, it’s got to have characters I care about and it’s got to show some narrative strength. BEN AND KATE scores on both accounts. Why the show really works for me – even beyond the laughs it generates – is that it never loses sight of the fact that these five people care about each other. There’s varying degrees of caring here, but this is clearly a unit. Where a show like Modern Family shows how the nuclear family has expanded, BEN AND KATE go in the opposite direction, and speak to (and for) the fractured family and how people who randomly enter your life can become every bit as important (and often moreso) than blood relations.

That latter point puts BEN AND KATE in the same ballpark as a show like Community, and like that show, BEN AND KATE generates a good amount of its comedy from absurd humor. The difference is that where Community embraces that absurdity in every aspect of an episode, BEN AND KATE largely keep the (relatively mild) absurdity to the dialogue. At breakfast, the non-Kate people are planning Kate’s birthday. Maddie (who’s 5 or 6, remember) says she wants her mom to have a mermaid party, BJ tells her that’s a dumb idea and when Maddie insists it isn’t, BJ tells the kid she can’t even spell mermaid and if she can, they can have the party.

“M,” Madde begins, “U-”

BJ is victorious and Ben looks to his niece and says, “It’s tough to see you choke like that.”

There’s a sweetness, too, in BEN AND KATE, typically shown about once an episode where one of the siblings says something really nice to the other. Like when Kate is struggling in the premiere episode, and Ben tells her she needs to relax. “You’ve made one mistake in your life,” he tells her, referencing her getting pregnant, “and it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to you.” Or in the fourth episode, when we see Kate spending her birthdays alone at a ice cream shop. This solitary manner of spending her birthday is the entire reason Ben wants to throw his sister a big party, but at the end of the episode, after each has had their own wacky adventure, Kate tells Ben that she was never alone on her birthday, and the show cuts back to the ice cream scenes to reveal that Maddie was always with her.

Nat Faxon and Dakota Johnson are really great together. Faxon expertly pulls off the idiot dreamer I can’t help but like, while Johnson makes me want to step inside my TV and help her out. Both actors do a great job (in very different ways) of making me always remember that these are two people for whom life has not worked out as they had hoped.

BEN AND KATE is just a really funny show that’s put together really well. It’s my favorite new show of the 2012 fall season. So watch it, or I’ll come to your house and give you a stern talking to.

DON’T TRUST THE B—- IN APARTMENT 23: First Thoughts on ABC’s New Horrible People Sitcom

Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23 (2012) – Episodes 1 & 2: “Pilot” and “Daddy’s Girl …” – Starring Krysten Ritter, Dreama Walker, Liza Lapira, Michael Blaiklock, Eric Andre, and James Van Der Beek.

I’m not a huge fan of sitcoms at this point in my life, and the ones that I do like tend to follow the British model of a short season of 6 or 8 or 10 episodes. By the time I’ve reached double digits on a series I’ve usually felt like I’ve seen all the tricks and know the characters as well as I’m going to and I’ve had enough for a while. The idea of turning in for 23 new episodes in a season … it just seems like a commitment I’m not willing to make anymore to get the same basic jokes week after week.

That being said, I really liked the first two episodes of DON’T TRUST THE B—- IN APARTMENT 23. There were multiple moments of genuinely funny and twisted humor that made me laugh, and even through two episodes the producers have done a really good job of making the characters more than just the stock types they initially appear to be.

The premise of the show is that June (Dreama Walker) has just moved to New York City for a big, shiny new job at a mortgage company. The company has provided her with a huge apartment to facilitate the move, but when June arrives for her first day, she finds the company has been plunged into chaos. The cops have arrived to arrest the company president for financial shenanigans and so June suddenly finds herself alone in the big city without a job or place to stay. Plucky go-getter that she is, June instantly starts looking for a roommate and a job.

What’s instantly appealing about APARTMENT 23 is that the show isn’t afraid to be a bit exaggerated in its comedy. When June arrives at her job to find it in chaos, it literally is in chaos. The employees are going absolute bonkers, taking everything they can. June meets Mark (Eric Andre), the guy who would have been her supervisor. Despite the absurdity around them, he’s almost happy-go-lucky about the situation, smiling at June and being rather upbeat despite the fact that he just lost his job. When June goes back to her apartment to find it closed off because it’s a company asset, a delivery truck pulls up and wants to know where she wants her crap. Cut to the next scene where they’ve unloaded her stuff outside a coffee shop. A coffee shop employee comes out to tell her she can’t leave her stuff there, and the coffee shop employee turns out to be Mark.

“Can’t leave a hole in the resume,” he insists.

June interviews with potential roommates and she makes a connection with Chloe (Krysten Ritter), who pleasantly insists on first month, last month, and security deposit. June has such a good feeling about Chloe that she agrees to it, despite the fact that it’s every last cent she has.

Things instantly go awry. June is the kind of roommate who puts her name on her food so Chloe keeps away from it, and Chloe is the kind of roommate who eats it anyway. June is the innocent country girl from Indiana and Chloe is the experience big city girl. June is uptight about her sexuality and Chloe walks around naked and easily converses with Eli (Michael Blaiklock), their next-building neighbor whose window is right next to theirs and seemingly spends all of his time masturbating as he watches them. June is shocked by all of this, of course, and when she storms out of her bedroom later that night to find Chloe on the couch with two guys and gets invited by Chloe to join them for a foursome, I was wondering what, exactly, the show was going to do with their set up. Was this just going to be a show about silly midwest girl being continually shocked by mean-spirited big city girl?

Nope.

When June storms off back to bed, Chloe’s look of playful lustiness is instantly wiped away in favor of a bored, frustrated look and she dismisses her two partners. She calls ex-boyfriend James Van Der Beek (James Van Der Beek) to complain. When Chloe hears the Dawson’s Creek theme (Paula Cole’s “I Don’t Want to Wait”) playing in the background, she knows he’s got company and we see a beautiful woman waiting for him on the stairs.

“Has she got you to wear the flannel, yet?” Chloe asks.

“We’re negotiating,” he replies, and the scene ends with a woman recreating the scene from Varsity Blues that forever linked Ali Larter with whip cream.

This is the scene that hooked me into the show. Not because it’s nice to see Van Der Beek poking fun of himself, but because Chloe’s true intentions are revealed: she’s a con artist to acts super nice to get people to move in with her, takes their first month/last month/security deposit and then drives them crazy so they move out, leaving her with a tidy profit. June, however, a stronger opponent than Chloe has faced before. When Chloe walks in on June taking a bath and casually tells her it’s okay if she masturbates in the tub because “that tub and I go way back, we’re like Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy,” and then lets out that she bought a gorgeous new bag on the extra money she took from June because the apartment isn’t nearly as expensive as she told her it was, June becomes energized. Chloe returns home the next day to find out that all of her stuff is gone.

What happened to it?

June sold it to make her money back.

Well played, Indiana. That contention between the two characters makes the show work. It’s not an entirely antagonistic relationship, of course, but it’s always going places to demonstrate how the women need to one-up the other to remain as equals. June’s fiance from Indiana shows up and Chloe is convinced that he’s cheating on her, so to get Stephen’s teenage test subject (he’s a scientist – Stephen, not the test subject) to spill the beans, she gets the 13-year old boy drunk.

Yeah.

Chloe then tries to do the right thing and tell June about it (she’s gotten a job at the coffee shop thanks to Mark), June flips on her and says she doesn’t believe her. To prove her point, Chloe does the one thing she knows will prove to Chloe what a cheat is: she’s hooking up with him on top of June’s birthday cake
when June walks in. Ah, the things roommates do for one another. I know that I … well, I never would have hooked up with any of my roommate’s lady friends for any reason, so in her own way, Chloe is a much better person than I am. Good for her.

APARTMENT 23 continually upsets expectations in this manner. Chloe is upset that June sold her grandmother’s ottoman so they track it down and June show’s she can work a con, too, and they get it back. Chloe is thrilled to have the ottoman back, but not just because it was her grandmother’s ottoman, but because that’s where she stores the drugs she sells.

In the second episode, Chloe tells June that she needs to start dating again, and connives a way for June to meet a guy. June is resistant to being set up by Chloe but when she meets him she falls for him, only learning after she’s made out with him that this great guy Chloe set her up with is actually … Chloe’s dad. Who’s separated but not divorced from Chloe’s mom, who’s confined to a wheelchair, which perfectly explains to June (but not Chloe) why her mother never took her horseback riding or figure skating.

DON’T TRUST THE B—- IN APARTMENT 23 is a funny show about confronting one’s own expectations and desires. Chloe and Van Der Beek (it seems weird to refer to him as James) are on the evil side of the ledger and June (and Mark, though his role are small) are on the good side, but all of them confront the ways in which their life has come off track or the reasons why they’re not great people. It’s also a smart show with plenty of quick, throwaway jokes reminiscent of NBC’s best Horrible People sitcom, Community, such as when Van Der Beek is getting dressed by his tailor and Chloe asks, “Why do you look like Indiana Jones when he’s the Professor?,” a question which makes Van Der Beek and his tailor insanely happy because that’s the look they were going for. That bit has nothing to do with the show, but it exemplifies how APARTMENT 23 fills the space between the plot, by jamming in stand-alone bits of comedy that appeal to a smart audience without necessarily turning away people who don’t get it due to it’s rapid-fire usage.

I don’t know how long I’ll stick with APARTMENT 23, but for now it’s been added to the Hulu queue and I look forward to seeing where it goes.

BLACKADDER’S CHRISTMAS CAROL: The Queen Has Banned the Christmas

Blackadder’s Christmas Carol (1988) – Directed by Richard Boden – Starring Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson, Miranda Richardson, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Robbie Coltrane, Miriam Margolyes, Jim Broadbent, and Nicola Bryant.

If you have not seen BLACKADDER’S CHRISTMAS CAROL, you should take 45 minutes out of your day and go watch it. There are three reasons why if you only see one adaptation of Charles Dickens’ non-cricket starring Christmas story this season, it should be this one.

Reason #1: It’s really funny. BLACKADDER was the coolest comedy back in the day, and it still holds up remarkably well. Rowan Atkinson sits at the center of a merry cast of characters, and he’s able to mold each different iteration of Blackadder to that time period’s different cast of characters, while still managing to be a pretty big assh*le in each one. (If you haven’t seen BLACKADDER, each season of the show sees the series recast in a different time period from British history.) In this version, Blackadder is the nicest guy in London, and on Christmas Eve everyone comes in and takes advantage of his generosity, leaving him penniless. Atkinson and Tony Robinson play extremely well off each other and the episode’s funny is derived largely from their relationship.

Reason #2: The big name stars. Nearly everyone here is someone you’ll recognize: Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, Miranda Richardson, Jim Broadbent, Robbie Coltrane … heck even Doctor Who’s Companion Peri (Nicola Bryant) makes an appearance. Double heck, it was co-written by Richard Curtis, who you know as the guy who wrote Love Actually and “Vincent and the Doctor.”

Reason #3: This is a really well-done and executed adaptation that sees the traditional story flipped on its lid. Instead of the Scrooge character being a wretched human being that gets set straight by the Ghosts of Christmas, the Scrooge character (Blackadder) is actually the nicest guy in London. Everyone takes advantage of him, and his yearly profits of seventeen pounds and one penny walk out the door in donations on Christmas Eve. Heck, even his Christmas bird and bowl of nuts get taken away from him.

Blackadder doesn’t mind, though, as he puts a positive spin on everything. He heads to bed and he’s visited by the Spirit of Christmas (Robbie Coltrane), who just wants to pop in and pop out because Blackadder is such a nice guy there’s nothing to show him. Blackadder convinces the Spirit to do the whole deal, so he shows him scenes from the past. We see the series versions of Blackadder, and the Christmas Blackadder sees how his ancestors were rather reprehensible. Instead of thinking better of himself, however, he begins to admire them. As awful as his ancestors are, they weren’t taken advantage of the way Christmas Blackadder has been abused by the locals.

The Spirit of Christmas is horrified and doesn’t want to show Blackadder the future, but he relents and does. In one version of the future, Christmas Blackadder becomes this super space-faring bad ass; in the version where he continues to be nice, he becomes the sidekick.

So he decides to become a dick, and ends up blowing his opportunity to gain a fortune and a royal title from Queen Vic.

It’s a great inversion of the original tale, and makes for a satisfying final twist to a very satisfying special.

Be sure to check out the Holiday Review Index for all the Holiday-themed reviews to be found at Atomic Anxiety.