FOX
Test Pilot is a semiregular feature sharing my first impressions of the pilots for next fall’s shows. These aren’t reviews, since these pilots can be rewritten, recast and retooled before airing, and the shows that eventually get on the air can prove much better or worse. But, premature opinions are why God invented the Internet, so let’s get on with…
The Show: Running Wilde, Fox
The Premise: Gob from Arrested Development gets a spinoff. Well, no. But it stars Will Arnett and was co-created by AD’s Mitch Hurwitz, and there are definitely thematic similarities. Steve Wilde (Arnett) is an immature playboy who lives off a trust fund and has never had to take responsibility for others. His development has been arrested. But his good life gets complicated when a childhood sweetheart (Keri Russell), a humanitarian who works in the Amazon, shows up with her young daughter, to ask Wilde to get his father’s oil company to stop a planned drill in the rainforest. To win her back, he’ll have to prove he’s capable of being a good person.
First Impressions: The reaction of other TV critics I talked to or heard from after Fox screened a trailer at the upfronts was that particular wistfulness that comes from seeing a trailer for a show you really want and hope to be good and finding it wanting. So I’m happy to report that the full pilot is much better and funnier than it seemed in cut-down version. (An extended sight gag, involving Wilde and a fashionable, expensive miniature horse, plays much better in the pilot. I mean, how can you make a tiny-horse joke not funny?) Besides the AD-like premise, there’s a definite, identifiable Hurwitz voice here—a kind of theatrical-farce banter that you might associate more with old screwball movie comedies than with anything on TV today. (Hurwitz also—here, on AD and on the short-lived Sit Down, Shut Up—seems to love the humor of oddball do-gooder causes.) And Russell is quite a promising straightwoman (Felicity, you might not remember, was actually really funny). Though the pacing sometimes feels a little slow, and the peripheral characters broad, the pilot is loaded with the kind of subtle background gags, demanding close attention, that AD was famous for. Is it as good as Arrested Development’s pilot? God, no! But that’s a ridiculous standard, like asking if Treme is as good as The Wire, or if you are as good as Mahatma Gandhi. I don’t expect Wilde to be one of the greatest comedies ever; it may not become one of the best comedies currently on TV, even. But if I came to this pilot with no preconceptions, never having seen Arrested Development before, this would be one of my most-anticipated fall shows so far.
Do I Want to Watch Another Episode? Tiny, tiny horses couldn’t drag me away.