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"It can't be said enough times in one review: Larroquette and Baranski in a comedy together is a spectacular casting coup, and a great idea..."

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Happy Family

A Review by Techtite

When choosing the "Unlucky 7" for the Fall 2003 TV season --that is: the new shows I'm pretty sure won't last their first seasons-- one of the hardest choices to admit, was Happy Family. With John Larroquette and Christine Baranski in a sitcom, how can you go wrong? That's what I keep telling myself, when part of me is happy to see Baranski and Larroquette together in a sitcom each week, while the other part of me is asking; why am I not laughing as much as I could be?

Not that the potential wasn't there. It can't be said enough times in one review: Larroquette and Baranski in a comedy together is a spectacular casting coup, and a great idea. Making matters only better is how these two stars have remembered their two best comic performances, and revived them into their Happy Family characters. Larroquette is reenacting the same comic persona that made his Dan Fielding character so popular, in 1980's Night Court. Meanwhile, Baranski performs the "spoiled" yet maternal performance that made her supporting character in The Bird Cage so engrossing. They are the parents of this "Happy Family," and the family is all the better for it.

Not that this is a really happy family; that's the whole joke. The concept, as of the series premiere, is that dear old mom and dad have finally got their last child out of the nest, only to discover they might have made a mistake or two along the way. Todd (Jeff B. Davis) is engaged to a pretty fiancée, and yet he's having an affair on the side, only weeks before the wedding. Middle sister Sara (Melanie Deanne Moore) is single, and possibly will be for life; this being a girl who brings her pet parrot with her on blind dates. Then there's Tim (Tyler Francavilla), who has dropped out of college and is now living with their next door neighbor, Maggie Harris (Susan Gibney). As Annie (Baranski) puts it in the series premiere, "I'm starting to think we didn't do a very good job!"

So, why did this make it into a list of Fall's "Unlucky 7"...? It's hard to put into words, but something just isn't meshing here. Maybe it's because of the scripts; predictable, and working solely because of the two seasoned performers as the "happy" parents. In the third episode, the three siblings confront their dad (Larroquette) with a list of demands, of things they want changed as a family. As they go through their list, Dad is like the eye of a storm, agreeing with them and being almost scarily cordial. Then they suggest not coming to Sunday dinner. The outburst this leads to is hard to describe well in text, though that's the point. As lines on a script, this probably wasn't even intended to be a joke, though thanks to the performers involved, it's a riot.

The biggest mistake of this sitcom, however, is that Larroquette and Baranski are merely two peas in this pod. They have three children in this story, and as you'd predict, they are therefore only two-fifths of the program. This is a grave error, more even more so because these younger characters are so bland and lifeless. No, I would not say the problem is with the stars themselves; they deliver their lines as well as can be expected. It's just these three characters --a guy who cheated on his bride, a lonely spinster, a college dropout-- aren't very funny. The writers are too busy explaining all these characters' neurosis, that the ability to write in a joke or two is abandoned. Okay, we get it; these kids are total losers. Bring on the funny!

Will this series survive, and break my Unlucky 7 prediction? That's hard to figure, though it would be good news for all, if it was. I would like nothing better than to have Happy Family survive until it gets its proper footing. I thereby give it a marginal thumbs up, because I see a lot of potential here. It's now all up to the script writers, to use that potential. The ball's in their court.

---Techtite

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