tv shows I miss
The comedies catalogued below are just the lowest of the lowbrow, suited exactly to my taste. Everything on this list is a two-season wonder: a show that hit its stride early on, proved in its second season that it could continue indefinitely, and then was brutally canceled before it could air a capstone. (I’m not sure I was aware—or maybe I’d forgotten—that A.P. Bio was canceled after two seasons, then was uncanceled, then aired two more seasons before being canceled a second time. Brutal!!)
A.P. Bio
Glenn Howerton stars. The worst man in the world is teaching a high school class and, somehow, it is NOT like Eastbound and Down. You’d be forgiven for skimming this list and believing that I’m an Always Sunny fan, or that I’m really into the concept of PG-rated Always Sunny, when neither of those things is actually true.
What I enjoy about this incredibly silly show is that it’s nearly like the movie Young Adult (for which Patton Oswalt should’ve been Oscar-nominated) if gender-flipped. That sounds like it shouldn’t be a thing—Young Adult is just a gender-flipped version of any movie about a bad man—except that Glenn Howerton, plainly put, has the energy of a beautiful, mean lady. He also wears an array of handsome shawl-neck cardigans, as if I’d dressed him myself. The female gaze is a shawl-neck cardigan, especially a big chunky knit one.
This show, much like The Mick, has an unexpectedly sweet, gooey core. I guess I have a propensity for weeping during MasterChef Jr., when Gordon Ramsay is tender toward a child and I keep being caught emotionally off-guard like I still haven’t caught on that this is the entire bit.
Book Group
I used to rewatch the first series of Book Group every few years. Rarely did I move onto the second series, which is a little too dreamy for me, almost as if Vanilla Sky happened at the end of the first series and now things have deteriorated in a way that isn’t salvageable. Anyway, I’m due for a rewatch, if I can handle it: Anne Dudek’s Clare, an American in Glasgow, always makes me cringe in recognition. Michelle Gomez is terrific in this as one of three footballers’ wives whose own personal ambitions—to become a television presenter at any cost—get her into some of the messiest scenarios from among what is a very messy roster of characters. If I had to compare it to another show I’d compare it to Party Down, but more subdued, but more sexually explicit, but with less nudity.
Michelle Gomez reminds me, maybe I should put The Flight Attendant on this list, too, except—very much like Big Little Lies, with a first season based on a novel, beautifully self-contained—the second season was just eh. So I’ll leave it alone.
Girls5eva
Like A.P. Bio, this show contains NBC stalwart Paula Pell. I don’t think I realized a third season aired on Netflix? Tricky! Anyway, this show gave us “New York Lonely Boy,” so all was not for naught.
Lodge 49
I don’t know that there are a whole ton of shows that center on healthy male friendships. This one is about a gaggle of dudes trying to jumpstart their masonic lodge. I should rewatch it. I really liked Wyatt Russell in this (spitting image of Kurt, but as blond as his mom Goldie) because his delivery is so organic and understated. I suspect he’s playing who Chris Pine is in real life.
I’m no Friends fanatic, but did you know that Lisa Kudrow based her characterization of Phoebe Buffay on exactly who Jennifer Aniston is in real life? People seem to be surprised that Aniston is currently in love with a hypnotist life coach and it’s like, who else do you think Phoebe Buffay would be dating.
The Mick
Kaitlin Olson stars. An entitled loser (“Mickey”) and her dimwitted loser boyfriend assume responsibilities managing her sister’s household, including her sister’s three spoiled children. I showed my friend Phil this show while he stayed at our house. He was all, “noooo, I don’t want to watch a show on FOX,” and we ordered Wendy’s and I put it on anyway, and he could not believe how good it was. Like, he was yelling. It’s so good! I was like, I know!
Single Drunk Female
Gut-wrenching, but it helped me stop drinking. Sofia Black-D’Elia (The Mick) stars.
Single Parents
Less mean-spirited than most others on this list—it doesn’t have a mean bone in its body, actually—this show is so shmoopy. I think I was pretty exhausted when I was watching these shows, and Single Parents is like a warm blanket. TARAN KILLAM and LEIGHTON MEESTER star in it and it is cute, cute, cute.
This seems like a terrific time to mention I don’t understand the consensus love for Happy Endings. I started rewatching the show and tapped out quickly. That show is mean, and I found it strangely misogynistic, too? IDGI.
I also recently rewatched the first few episodes of the original Mad About You. Wow. When I was a kid, I thought it was the most romantic thing I’d ever seen. This time, as an adult, I was like… do these two icy, acerbic people even like each other? They’re supposed to be newlyweds, but they’re acting like a couple in their 70s whose kids have been begging them to divorce for the past 45 years. You heard it here, folks: doing a crossword is romantic, but Paul Reiser refusing to go furniture-shopping with Helen Hunt is not.