Year: 2013

In the US: Wednesdays, 9.30pm ET/PT, ABC

I’m going to give you a little list of traits and as I add to them, think of how few shows there have been in the history of TV that have featured this combination of traits, despite their not being especially rare: female, friends, nerds, overweight, nights out.

Think about it. Rarer than ducks’ teeth, huh? So in some ways we should celebrate Super Fun Night, a female ensemble comedy about a group of nerdy women who have been friends for years and who every Friday go out on ‘Super Fun Night’ together. Not only that, it stars in another positive representative move the plus-sized Australian comic Rebel Wilson, who was one of the best things about both Bridesmaids about Pitch Perfect and is also the head writer on this. It even features Kevin Bishop as a nice British guy who’s quite into Wilson, preferring her and her nerdy ways over the thin office high-achiever and her back-stabbing.

It’s all quite enjoyable as a set-up, reverses the gender stereotypes a little with Bishop the normal one who has to endure the female nerds’ excesses when he accompanies them on Super Fun Night. There’s even a cameo by Wilson’s Bridesmaids comedy partner, Matt Lucas of Little Britain fame.

Except, although it raises a few titters, it’s not that funny. It’s more that you want it to be funny. It doesn’t help that Wilson brings in too much of the Pitch Perfect and has a lengthy singing scene midway through the episode. There’s also too much cringe comedy for something trying to be warm hearted and fun: the show has certain Miranda elements to it, with Wilson becoming embarrassingly disrobed on various occasions, but it’s done more as a scene of embarrassment rather than physical comedy.

It deserves to do better and I think it probably will settle down and get better in later episodes. At the moment, it’s not quite a keeper, more one to keep an eye on.