In the US: Fridays, 8pm, Fox
I really want to know who does the commissioning for Fox’s comedy division. Do they have a background in the theatre? Do they love hard-hitting tragedies?
What’s up with them basically, because they’re not hiring people who can write funny.
Take a look at Brothers, another ‘sitcom’ that like its Fox antecdent Happy Hour is really a drama with a laughter track: a football player has to return home from New York to be with his family, when his mother calls to tell him his father’s had a stroke. Back in Texas, he has to confront his bitter, wheelchair-bound brother, whose own sports career was destroyed thanks to a car accident and whose restaurant is now failing.
But it soon transpires that the prodigal son’s manager has run off with all his money, leaving him bankrupt, the only asset being the house he bought his parents. So he chooses to return to living with his family, to join his brother in running the restaurant, and to help look after his dementing father.
It’s like Ibsen or Chekov, isn’t it?
