Mr. Sunshine: "Pilot"

Once I make all the tired cracks about how Monica's show was bumped to make way for Chandler's show, I'll offer up a review of Mr. Sunshine's pilot, after the jump....

This is one of those times where even though the pilot isn't very good, I don't want to write off the show entirely. At least not yet.

Let me explain. Matthew Perry plays Ben, the Manager of Operations at The Sunshine Center, a sports arena/venue, and one half of the double entendre in the title. (The other half is just obvious irony.) Ben had just turned 40, and this of course means that he is suddenly having an almost-mid-life crisis about his place in the world, and if he has friends, and if he can find love and blah, blah, blah. There are many problems with this premise, including both that we seen it before, and that it's not very well executed (seriously, some of the dialogue was so ridiculously blunt I felt like I was watching a soap opera). But the biggest twin problems of the premise is that it threatens to takeover the entire show, and that it has absolutely nothing to do with the other subplots. In a show with a lot of good little elements, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Now, there have been critics who have compared Mr. Sunshine to Cougar Town, in that both shows have started out weak, but with the ability to grow into something much stronger, which the latter has done. (I'll also throw in that both show started off with a bad, hokey premise.) Now, I see where this idea comes from, and I'm not opposed to the comparison, because it is apt. And while I do hope the show can grow, I'm not sure if Cougar Town is the right direction for the show to aim. Instead, I would suggest that the show try to be more like the late Better Off Ted, a direction I think it could pull off, as Mr. Sunshine has plenty of wacky, absurd, or surreal humor, and if it just upped it a few notches, it could reinvent itself. There were stories tonight that involved clowns with axes and a elephant on the lose, as well as running gag with a man in a lion mascot suit; these provided the biggest laughs, and I think that is an obvious sign that the show can't afford to ignore.

Though some might decry this suggestion as a disservice to Perry, I think this would benefit him as an actor. Perry has always been good in delivering dry sarcasm, and he does it here with aplomb, especially when interacting with the owner, Crystal, or her estranged, strange son Roman. (Plus both shows shared the adorable Andrea Anders, and she deserves more of a role that what she had tonight.) Yes, wacky humor is a tricky to pull off, but it can be done, and I think that if the show tries to make those jokes work as much as it tries to make some of the unfunny ones work, I believe that it could succeed in this regard.

But that's just my suggestion, and if Mr. Sunshine wants to go in another direction, I'm all for it, just as long as it drops the premise that it already has.

What did everybody else think?


Additional Thoughts:

Hey, it Jorge Garcia! He's not part of the regular cast, but supposedly his role is recurring, and since his work here was good, I hope the show uses him better in future episodes.

“Are they happy? Are they sad? Why are their pockets so big?”

“I don't think you should open with 'Yay, black people!'”

“Hey, Alice, would you unzip me? I dropped a taco in here.”