Watching Ellie
airs Tuesday nights at 7:30 (for now) on NBCSo much for the
Seinfeld curse. Michael Roberts came back with a muffled and unfunny sit-com about a private detective. Jason Alexander came back with a turgid and unfunny sit-com about a motivational speaker. Patrick Wharburton came back with an over-sexed and surprisingly unfunny sit-com about The Tick.
And now Julia Louis-Dreyfus has hit the airwaves again with a sharp and laugh-out-loud
comedy about a lounge singer.
Notice that the failures above (with the notable, though regrettable, exception of
The Tick) all played it safe. They made sit-coms. Sit-coms,
Everyone Loves Raymond aside, are dead. What network television needs now is comedies, the kind of subtle but uproarious real-life comedies pioneered by such shows as
Dream On,
The Larry Sanders Show,
Sports Night, and yes
Seinfeld. Louis-Dreyfus and co-producer/writer/husband/SNL alum Brad Hall have decided to take big risks in bringing that flavor to NBC. Luckily, for all careers involved, the risks have paid off.
Much like this year's other risk-taking series
24,
Watching Ellie is shown in real time, complete with a small countdown in the corner of the screen. At first this aspect of the show troubled me most. For one thing, a good comedy relies on timing, and without the ability to edit time with cutaways, I thought the writing would be too hard-pressed to create good rhythm. Of course, comedy existed before film editing, and it existed because of damn good writing. So far, this show has had damn good writing. The other problem with the clock is that, unlike
24 (in which the clock is just a clock), we have a nifty countdown to the end of the show in the corner. In essence, the show is saying, "Hold on, only 15 minutes until it finally ends." The first two episodes have turned this counter around, building internal deadlines into the show so that the clock says, "She only has 15 minutes to straighten this mess out." I wonder how many consecutive episodes can carry this weight before the repetition wears thin. I predict the clock will be the first of this show's innovations to disappear.
The rest is roundly laudable. The lack of a laugh track made me pleased as punch. This hoary stand-by has outlived its usefulness -- either perform for an audience or write funnier scripts. The writing, in case I haven't made it clear yet, has been full of believable yet off-the-wall gags, different enough to help the show break a sit-com mold. But by far the best thing about
Watching Ellie, what will eventually lift it above the
Seinfeld curse, is the acting.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays a lounge singer (and she sings quite well!) who's a bit of a flake, a bit of a tart, and a bit of a slut. It's a warmer, saucier version of Elaine Benes -- Ellie is a person, not a character, which helps in the show's real-time context. Dreyfus also has the good grace to allow much broader sidekicks to carry the laughs. The stand-outs thusfar are
The Daily Show's Steve Carell, as Ellie's pompous ex-boyfriend Edgar, and Peter Stormare as Ingvar, her band's new roadie and the show's obligatory "wacky neighbor" (he seems to be melding Latke from
Taxi with Kramer).
Other critics have split the fence, either loving or hating this show. I love it, but I love it with the caveat that it's a brand-new series. Even
Seinfeld and
The Simpsons had long dry spells in their first seasons. I really hope NBC gives this show a chance with a cushy time slot (keeping it as a lead-in to
Frasier isn't bad, although I'd like to see it oust the awful
Leap of Faith as a
Friends follower) and a two-year trial period. A lot can happen in that second season, and that will be when America decides whether Ellie is really worth watching or not.
posted by Chris at 8:10 PM 
