NOBODIES

Here’s a FQ that prompted an entire post.

Craig Russell asked:

Have you seen the new TV Land offering "Nobodies"? It’s produced by Melissa McCarthy and is about a trio of sitcom writers, trying to make it while having personal lives.  I wondered if you had seen it and had any insight.

I’ve just seen a few episodes and thought it was… okay. The actors are fine, there are amusing moments, but generally I find the show undercooked. And they go after easy targets.

When the jokes aren’t inside Hollywood jokes, most of the humor comes from the three leads either humiliating themselves or acting like jerks.

My biggest problem (and this is my pet peeve with a lot of series) is why do we care? This team of writers (and by the way, rarely if ever are there writing teams of three) has a job. Okay, it’s on a stupid kids’ animated series but it’s a steady job. They work in a cool office on a studio lot. There are a thousand unemployed writers who would kill for that job. Not to mention the viewing audience. How many miserable office drones or Roto-Rooter men would trade jobs in a second?

That’s one of the standard problems with doing shows about writers. People who have “real” jobs and do heavy lifting find it hard to feel sorry for highly paid TV writers who get annoying notes. Not that the problems we face aren’t legit and just as soul-sucking, but it ain’t digging ditches.

Again, in the pilot – the plot is that they have a spec screenplay they want to sell so they can make lots of money. We’re paid lip service that one of the writers is a single mom and another has a family with kids to support. But beyond that they’re never mentioned.

The big story complication is they lie in a meeting at Paramount and say that Melissa McCarthy will play the lead of their movie. Then they text Melissa and go to her husband and neither of those ploys work so they resort to plan B and try to get Jason Bateman who they pitch in a pick up basketball game.

So getting back to the “why do we care?” question: They are writers good enough that they can get a studio meeting. Maybe Paramount didn’t buy this one but so what? There are other places to go and there are thousands of screenwriters who can never get one meeting. The three writers obviously know Melissa McCarthy to where she’s trading texts with them. They’re friends with her husband. They have connections to where they have access to Jason Bateman.

Boy, for struggling writers they sure have it easy.

In general you want your characters to desperately NEED something. E.G. -- Selling a movie means he doesn’t lose his house. Then you make it as difficult as you possibly can for that character to achieve his goal. How does a roof repair guy who knows nobody in the industry somehow get to Melissa McCarthy? Do you see the difference?

So the show is okay, but I think it could be better and funnier. It’s obviously a lot of Groundlings people getting together, having some fun, knocking out some shows.   But I feel a little like I’m intruding on someone else’s party. No one is throwing me out, but no one is making me feel particularly welcome either. If I want to stand off to the side and laugh at their jokes I can stay. In a sense, I’m the nobody.