Thursday, September 15, 2011

Free Agents 1.1

"Pilot" (originally aired September 14, 2011)

Free Agents occupies the other half of the comedy hour with Up All Night. The ratings are in and Up All Night did much better. I wonder if it was because, between the 2, it got more of the promotion. I saw an extended preview online for Free Agents (and was mildly amused by it but not that impressed) and that was about it. I don't watch a lot of ads, but even I saw the ads for Up All Night.

The show is about a group of PR co-workers and focuses on 2 (Hank Azaria and Kathryn Hahn) who are overcoming difficult personal situations (divorce and loss of a loved one) and happen to hook up. There's also a whole group of co-workers who have no boundaries, especially the boss (Giles, I know that's not his name, but that's stuck with me since Buffy, or I guess more recently, Uther Pendragon).

Overall, I thought the Free Agents pilot was good and I could see why it got picked up. The characters were likeable and somewhat believable (other than the 20+ fiance pictures, but I think that was for effect). Unlike Up All Night, there wasn't any moment where I really laughed out loud, but the show did make me smile. It also didn't bring me down with reality like Up All Night did, but maybe that's because no one there seems to have or need (or want) work/life balance (a topic which clearly resonates with me). I thought the pilot was smoother and more coherent than Up All Night, but the latter got reworked a little bit after it was originally made so perhaps that's why.

I would watch this again. A won't watch it with me because he says all he'll hear will be Moe the bartender. I guess I can see that. As far as comedies go, both this and Up All Night were relatively good, but I can't wait for the return of Modern Family, Community and Happy Endings!

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