Advance Review: Holy hell. Where to even begin? It hasn't even been a full year since ABC decided to buckle down and throw their feces at us in the form of Work It, but now we have to contend with The Neighbors; a laughless "how in the eff did this get made?" turd of a televisual offering.
First off, when a show comes around that's this awful, civility kind of goes out the window. Any attempt by me to be diplomatic will be rendered futile as my having had to now watch this pilot episode twice fills me with a despondency that I need to share. In short: I need you to feel my pain. I can, however, offer up the fact that ABC also happens to be home to the best new pilot of the fall season, Last Resort.
IGN's Review of the Last Resort Pilot
Marty and Debbie Weaver (Lenny Venito and Jami Gertz) upheave their family and move into a swanky New Jersey townhome community that's filled with silly alien explorers who do fantastically wacky and random things. Why is that woman taking a chainsaw to her flowers? Why is that man just spraying his garden hose up into the air? And suddenly... an alpaca? Good gravy, I felt like destroying something beautiful. Where was Jared Leto's Fight Club face when I needed it?
The cast of The Neighbors watching The Neighbors. Too easy.
Marty's also somehow managed to buy a townhome without his wife knowing. It's a surprise, you see. He's taking initiative because he's a hen-pecked TV nincompoop husband. But those of you out there who have actually gone through the excessive bureaucratic rigmarole involved in buying a home will probably find this part of the episode to be the most exhaustive work of science fiction in the entire 22 minutes. This is a small gripe, for sure, but I feel like it's also indicative of a much larger laziness being perpetrated here.
The aliens, led by Larry Byrd and his wife Jackie Joyner-Kersee (Simon Templeman and Toks Olagundoye), are a bunch of numbskulls; Frankensteined together by the past 50 years of TV ETs like Mork, The Coneheads and Dick Solomon. Look, I'm not saying this genre can't be done right. The aliens I just mentioned were funny. And 3rd Rock from the Sun stands as a testament to how one can do this story in a fresh and hilarious way. But without specific breakout performances, like those of John Lithgow, French Stewart and Robin Williams, all hope is lost. And what you wind up with is a show that recycles every tired trick in the comedy sketch playbook. The aliens, who of course have no idea how to blend in, all adopt silly athlete names. They cry out of their ears. They eat by reading and make love using asbestos. And, naturally, the Weavers are such blockheads that they initially write them off as being, wait for it, "European."
Oh, and let's throw in a bit of the old Alien Nation (via Mork from Ork) "the male aliens have the babies" shtick. And if I recall correctly, the Alien Nation visitors also had re-used famous people names. And spoke in a cold, calculating Conehead manner. You know, where you would say "affirmative" instead of "yes." If you read my review of NBC's The New Normal, then you saw me take it to task a little bit for having a "Punk'd" reference. Well, I swear to balls that this show has a freakin' Candid Camera joke. CANDID CAMERA! That's it. Done. Forever. I quit!
From the opening shot of the dopey flying saucer racing past the pyramids of Egypt and the Eiffel Tower, you're going to hate your eyes. This is dreadful TV. It relies on the aliens having some sort of communication device called a "Poo Pah" for laughs. Because POO! I know, some of you are looking at the score and wondering "Why don't you just give it a big fat zero? Like you gave Work It?" The reason is... that's Work It's score. Now and forever. That's Willie's treasure.
No, seriously though. This is about as bad as a comedy can get, but it still didn't have the misogynistic sheen that Work It had. It's only offensive on a no-laughs level, not a sociological one. The Neighbors was created by Dan Fogelman, who wrote Crazy, Stupid Love - a movie I enjoyed! So shame on him for making me, back when this show was announced, ever think "Hey, that movie was good, so perhaps maybe I should give this guy's show a chance despite pre-hating it based on the premise." Thanks, Fogelman. I'll never love again.
The Neighbors premieres on Wednesday, September 26th at 9:30/8:30c on ABC.
Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and IGN. WARNING: No Nudity!
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