(I’ve fallen way behind on both my TV viewing and writing, but not to worry – dear reader – I don’t give up that easy – I’ve rapidly been viewing the first episode of every new television show of 2014, with the intent of seeing them all by the end of August. To facilitate a respective blog catchup, I’ll be posting lots of much shorter entries on each show)
We take the good with the bad, right. FX recently invented the 10-90 sitcom model with Anger Management in which a cheap sitcom gets 10 episodes aired daily over two weeks; if they’re enough of a ratings success, the network picks up 90 more episodes. This insane model is designed towards syndication success and is easily worthy of a longer post on another occasion. Saint George starring George Lopez and Partners are FX’s two attempts with the model this year.
The most important takeaway for now, about the model, is that’s it’s pretty much designed to produce, at best, mediocre sitcoms. I honestly have no idea who watches these shows. The first example, as mentioned above, was Charlie Sheen’s Anger Management, and I’ve never met anyone who watches it, but that’s not particularly surprising considering my social circle. I speak not just because of how cheaply these sitcoms are made, or because of the little attention lavished on their quality; they’re generally worked around a fickle premise and a down-on-his-luck star, two in Partners’ case, with Martin Lawrence and Kelsey Grammer. While those factors are certainly prohibitive, most importantly, even the best comedy writers in the world couldn’t craft 100 great episodes of anything in a short period of time.
Partners isn’t good. If you’ve by any chance heard of Partners, you know that, and if you hadn’t, you know that by the time you’ve gotten to this paragraph. Pushed, I’d say it’s better than Saint George, but that’s more about a battle of one downsmanship than anything else. Kelsey Grammer plays the Kelsey Grammer character. He’s an arrogant attorney who has recently been fired from his father’s firm for one too many ethical lapses. Martin Lawrence plays a do-gooder attorney who everyone loves, but who doesn’t have the gumption or attitude to stand up for himself, particularly in his divorce settlement. Them being opposites, they naturally need each other; Lawrence can use Grammer’s borderline-unethical take-what’s-mine mentality, while Grammer needs a place to practice, and maybe some exposure to someone people actually like. Supporting characters include Lawrence’s sassy mother, his teenage daughter, his gay assistant, and Grammer’s truant high school aged step daughter.
You can see every joke a mile away; the characters are crude and broadly-drawn; none of the 22 minutes is spent trying to imply there’s anything more to any of the characters than you can see in your first five second interactions. Grammer guesses that the gay assistant’s favorite legal film is Legally Blonde, and the assistant, rather than be offended, naturally cedes that Grammer’s correct. It’s less offensive than it could be, which is about the highest compliment I can possibly give this show and more than I thought I would, but it’s just as bad and pointless as you and everyone thinks.
Will I watch it again? No. There’s nothing more to be said. I rarely feel like I give too much credit to shows simply by writing about them, but I almost do here. My logic in reviewing every show has been that every show, no matter how bad, deserves to be mentioned, for all the steps that go on just to get any show to air. These 10-90 shows that absolutely nobody cares about at all really test that theory.
Television, the Drug of the Nation 
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