Pilot Watch: Do Not Disturb

BuzzSugar — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:30:22 -0700

The networks have announced their Fall schedules, but which of the series will actually be worth watching? This Summer, as the networks release their pilots, I'll be posting my first impressions. A lot can change before a show makes it to air - especially this year, when the writers' strike severely gummed up the production of pilots - so consider these just some quick thoughts on how the shows look now. Today's installment: Fox's Do Not Disturb, the network's only new comedy of the Fall, which will be paired with 'Til Death on Wednesdays.

What's it about? The Upstairs, Downstairs-style comedy focuses on the relationships between the employees of a ritzy hotel.

Who's in it? Niecy Nash, Jerry O'Connell, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Molly Stanton, Jolene Purdy

The good: This show has a lot of funny people who are hilarious on their own and should, ideally, be funny together. I love Nash on Reno 911!, I think infinitely higher of O'Connell after his Tom Cruise parody video, and executive producer Abraham Higgenbotham was a writer on Arrested Development (fellow Arrested alum Jason Bateman directed the pilot). Nash, in particular, has a commanding presence on screen and seems like she could really do a lot with her character.

The bad: Stereotypes. Everywhere. Some of them are actually funny (there's a great sight gag with the women at the reception counter going up on their tippy-toes to please O'Connell's character, after Nash's character gets them some more-comfortable but less-skyscraping shoes), but so many of them just made me cringe. Like what? Well, the plot line of the first episode revolves around an overweight phone receptionist who wants to interact with hotel guests but isn't allowed to because of her looks. Yes, the bosses keeping her hidden come off as abhorrent - but mostly I felt like the show wanted us to point and laugh right along with them.

Will I watch? The show will have to get a lot less broad and stereotypical if it wants to keep me as a viewer.

To check out a preview and see a gallery of photos, just read more.

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Photos courtesy of Fox

Jason Bateman, Niecy Nash Team for Fox Comedy

BuzzSugar — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:34:32 -0700

I love when people I like team up to make some cool new project happen, and that seems to be the case with Fox's new comedy pilot The Inn. I was excited enough to see that Reno 911!'s Niecy Nash was cast in the lead of the comedy. Sweetening matters further was its creator and writer, Arrested Development alum - and possessor of one of the best names in Hollywood -Abraham Higginbotham. And now there's word that Jason Bateman will be directing the show's pilot episode.

That's an awful lot of comedy talent in one little show. Of course, there's all the Arrested Development goodness from Bateman and Higginbotham. And Nash has been one of my top two favorite characters on Reno! for, well, forever (the other one is Wendi McLendon-Covey, a.k.a. Deputy Clementine Johnson). If Nash can bring even a smidgen of the crazy/funny she offers up in Reno!, I'm sold.

I admit I wasn't too excited about the pilot from its description: an Upstairs, Downstairs-style show set in a swanky New York hotel. It just reminded me a little too much of Welcome to the Captain over on CBS. But with Nash in front of the camera and Bateman behind it, I'll definitely give it a try if it makes it through the pilot phase and becomes a series. You?

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