(premieres 9/25)
What's it about?
What happens when an exuberant dreamer who always says "yes" moves in with his overly responsible little sister to help raise her five-year-old daughter? BEN AND KATE, a new single-camera ensemble comedy, follows a pair of odd-couple siblings and their friends as they push each other out of their comfort zones and into real life. (from FOX.com)
You should watch if...
• you're tired of sitcoms centered around will-they-won't-they.
• you're a sucker for precocious five-year-olds.
So, how was it?
Although the pilot episode is available to watch now on Hulu, the show's actual premiere will be sandwiched between two new episodes of last year's biggest comedy breakout, NEW GIRL. It's hard to think how this show would compete against the adorkable juggernaut that is Zooey Deschanel, so it's a good thing they're on the same network. BEN AND KATE is far more traditional in format than the zany hijinks that Jess and Co. get up to on NEW GIRL -- B&K is essentially an odd-couple show where the characters spend a lot of time at a bar and every now and then a five-year-old girl says something cute.
The aspects of BEN AND KATE that may keep people tuning back in will be in the ways the show departs from that traditional format -- mainly in the fact that the leads are siblings, instantly negating any will-they-won't-they romantic tension (unless they decide to pull a DEXTER circa-Season 6 and reveal that Ben was adopted and Kate discovers she has more than familial feelings for her faux-brother...ick). It will be interesting to see what the writers do with these two characters without the chemistry and constant push-and-pull. Say what you will about romantic tension, but there's a reason it's always used: it provides some easy drama. Where is the tension inherent in a sibling relationship other than Ben's a big doofus and Kate's always exasperated with him? And will that be enough to keep people tuning in over the long haul? Only time will tell. It certainly helps to have an adorable sidekick dispensing precocious wisdom / wisecracks / visual gags (see: Maggie the five-year-old on this show, Nene Leakes in THE NEW NORMAL, the monkey in ANIMAL PRACTICE).
Dakota Johnson is all wide-eyed spunky spirit as the young mother Kate. She has one of those "where have I seen you before?" kinds of faces that instantly draws you in (and for the record, you saw her as the girl Justin Timberlake slept with in THE SOCIAL NETWORK). She feels like a real person doing her best to raise her young daughter by herself -- she is definitely the straight man to Ben's clown. Nat Faxon as Ben is, as yet, a fairly wide-drawn caricature that will take some character development before I can feel any attachment to him. Between him breaking into his own sister's house in a hockey mask to dragging a full drumset through the middle of her date, it's hard to connect with this buffoon of a man-child. I share Kate's frustration with him (and would, in fact, probably be far less patient with him if he were my brother). But Nat Faxon also brings an eager charm to the role that does make it impossible to hate Ben.
Needless to say, Maggie Jones as Kate's daughter Maddie is all sorts of cute. But so far, the two biggest supporting roles - Lucy Punch as the awkwardly-named BJ, Kate's fellow bartender, and Echo Kellum as bar-rat Tommy - are both rather one-note. BJ is an inexplicably British floozy who is unbelievably socially unaware (she tries to give Maddie a makeover in an utterly pointless yet still somehow chuckle-inducing scene). Tommy's only lines so far all have to do with how in love with Kate he is, which in the real world we would call a stalker, but in a sitcom is supposed to be funny. These two will need some fleshing out pronto -- there's no danger of a Schmitt here (aka a scene-stealing supporting player who quickly becomes the most interesting character on the show). BEN AND KATE will live or die based on how quickly people connect with...you guessed it, Ben and Kate (shocking, I know).
I don't think BEN AND KATE will be FOX's most successful new comedy (that honor will almost certainly go to THE MINDY PROJECT), and it certainly won't attract the crowd that its nightly follower, NEW GIRL, will draw. But in a season where industry insiders have already written off the crop of new comedies as even worse than usual, BEN AND KATE might just have the quirky, non-traditional charm to go the distance.
And the verdict is:
** Okay. I may give it another episode or two to see if it gets better.
I wavered between giving this show two or three stars. It's far from terrible, but in order to secure a weekly spot in my ever-growing television schedule, a show really has to hook my interest right off the bat. I'm not ready to write off the show just yet, so I will certainly give it another chance, but I can't say for sure right now whether or not it will end up earning a coveted spot in my Hulu queue.
What did you think, Fellow Addicts? Were you hooked in by the unusual (for television) sibling relationship? Or were you turned off by the lack of romantic chemistry? Will you be giving BEN AND KATE another chance? Vote in the poll below and then hit the comments!
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