No.
The situation comedy has been a staple of television ever since I Love Lucy made its debut on CBS in 1951. While I personally think that nothing can truly replace classics like That 70’s Show, I always like to take a look at some of the latest additions to the genre to see if they can make me laugh as hard as I possibly can. Unfortunately, comedy has lost a lot of its creative edge over the past two decades, and that becomes incredibly apparent when one takes an honest look at Perfect Harmony and Sunnyside.
Long story short, these two shows are boring, but for different reasons.
Perfect Harmony Is A Nothing Burger.
Words cannot describe the amount of boredom that you will feel…
If we put aside Perfect Harmony’s apparent coddling of religion, the show has next to nothing going for it other than Bradley Whitford and a few pieces of clever dialogue. While all sitcoms follow a problem-of-the-week format, this one seems to be based around trivial problems and issues that often don’t even require the influence of Whitford’s Ivy League music professor. To give you a sense of what I mean, let’s consider the pilot.
The show starts off in a rather dark place as Dr. Arthur Cochran (Whitford) crankily grieves for his dead wife. He happens across a Kentucky church choir that is preparing for a gospel competition. Apparently, they need the professor’s help because they suck… except that they are suddenly able to sing “Eye Of The Tiger” at the end of the episode like a bunch of pros.
I’m not asking for total, gritty realism here, but what’s the point of the show if the protagonists are already good anyway?
If that’s not enough for you, the third episode repeats the same plot on a smaller scale, albeit with some bafflingly stupid lines. At the start of the episode, Professor is looking for a soloist who can sing a portion of a song. He discovers that Ginny (Anna Camp) is the only one who is right for the job, but there’s a problem. For plot reasons, she has come down with a case of stage fright… even though she apparently sings in public on a regular basis. Naturally, her new mentor tries to coax her out of it by having her sing in a small bar under a fake stage name. Yay!
And by the way, you may notice that I haven’t talked about the jokes. That’s because there aren’t any.
Sunnyside Is A Subtle Form Of SJW Propaganda.
If NBC gave this show another season, it probably would’ve completely devolved into “Orange Man Bad” territory.
If Perfect Harmony is bland and inoffensive, Sunnyside is a demonstration of how attempts to be funny can easily turn into a cloak for political propaganda, which probably explains why it got pulled from the air after four episodes. The show follows a former New York City Councilman by the name of Garrett Modi (Kal Penn), who is down on his luck after drinking, driving, and attempting to bribe a cop. The show tries to mine some humor from this bit of Modi’s life, but it quickly veers off into the main plotline where he has to teach a bunch of immigrants about civics so they can pass the citizenship exam.
Cue the usual jokes about ICE, American history being boring, and immigrants taking American jobs.
Ha ha. Ha ha ha. Ha ha. Ha.
I’m not going to rant any longer than I have to about this one. If they didn’t put any thought into it, why should I?
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