Up All Night is the new comedy with Christina Applegate, Will Arnett and Maya Rudolph about being new parents, and trying to balance parenthood with other parts of life, like marriage and work. With that cast, and based on the extended preview I saw (the part where they realize they have to stop swearing around the baby), this was high on my list of new comedies to sample. The premise had a lot of potential, the actors were good and I expected a half hour of fun and laughs.
The pilot was OK. It set up all the characters and the plots, and there were some really funny moments, but I expected more laughs from it. Parts of it were a bit serious and real. I just watched Parenthood this afternoon, which I sometimes find uncomfortable for being too close to reality, so I thought this would be more funny than real. Seeing people try to balance their work and their family, having to work instead of spending time with their loved ones, missing special occasions ... that hits a little too close for me and is something I would rather see in a drama than a comedy, which I watch to escape reality. The ending - that you can't have it all and have to make hard choices - is true, but it's also so serious.
That said, I did think it was a good show and I will be watching the next episode. (I usually give a new show 3 tries before I decide to cut it, but sometimes things are just so terrible that I can't make it there. This isn't one of those shows.) Sometimes pilots aren't the best representations of a show, and sometimes it just takes some time for everyone to get it right. For example, I loved Modern Family from the very first episode and still do, but that wasn't the case with Community, which is one of my favorite shows on TV right now. I liked the first episode of Community but I didn't rave about it (like I did with Modern Family). I kept watching, and each week they did enough to get me to keep watching, and at some point (don't remember which episode), it just clicked with me and I couldn't stop watching (and got A hooked on it, for which the paintball episodes probably helped). Maybe this will click with me like that in a future episode too. I just hope next week has more laughs!
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