A couple of half-hour comedies worth your time
there's too much tv, people. just too much. but if you need something light but not *totally* frivolous, I have two recommendations
Back when I was a little girl dreaming of a mini TV I could carry around in my hand so I could watch the full TGIF lineup anywhere, at any time—as did all 90s kids—I never considered that not only would that mini TV one day be real, but it would also be a conduit for near-endless content which would render my handheld TV, in fact, an enslaver of humanity’s collective attention. But dreams DO come true, and here we are!
I’m home with little kids all day, so when it’s naptime or I’m tidying up or whatever, I like to have an easy half-hour comedy on. A lot of the time it’s The Office or Parks and Recreation1 (I can dip in and out of those easily since I’ve seen them so many times—who knew that one day we’d create our own reruns?! Oh, life, you crazy butthole!) but lately I’ve switched it up and been working my way through AP Bio and Abbott Elementary.
AP Bio leans into the absurd—starring Glenn Howerton, whose It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia apparently has a similar vibe (though I haven’t seen it)—especially after season 2 when it was dropped by NBC but picked up by Peacock (or “The ‘Cock” as we call it around my Best Friends text chain; well, Nick and I call it that. Our spouses do not).
The premise: Howerton is a canned Harvard philosophy professor forced by life—oh, life, you crazy butthole!—to move back to his hometown, Toledo, where he lives in his dead mother’s townhouse and starts “teaching” AP Bio at his high school alma mater. Other notable cast members: Patton Oswalt and Paula Pell, though the rest of the supporting cast is truly excellent. The show is an extended rumination on expectations vs. reality, where you’re from, and what it all means.
In one episode, about the town’s Katie Holmes Day festivities, Howerton begins to change his mind about what’s important. “Sure, big dreams can be a bit of a mirage, planted in our capitalist minds by greedy corporations…” he begins, addressing the crowd. “You’re losin’ us!” the gym teacher shouts.
I don’t think you need an especially high tolerance for the absurd to enjoy AP Bio. Though I do have one. For example, here’s a rundown of what the Best Friends Gang group chat members are doing today.
Nick, a bona fide teacher of the year and district coordinator for elementary social studies curriculum, is researching local black history and creating lesson plans for the district’s teachers;
Megyn, a med school faculty member, is providing primary care services at a low-income clinic and managing the care of medically complex children at the hospital;
Noah, a senior IS analyst at the city police department, is managing and updating the public safety network for more than 400 (500? 600?) essential workers;
and I texted everyone this picture of a piece of wood that looks like a chef’s knife:
Over the course of the series, Howerton’s character tries to rehabilitate his career by writing a book, The Pursuit of Happiness Through Societal Regression. We never see much of it (that’s not the point) but in one episode, Principle Durbin (Oswalt) has retooled the text into a bunny-themed coloring book with activity titles like “withdrawal from consciousness and unwanted ideas,” “criticizing a position by calling attention to irrelevant personal characteristics of someone who holds it,” etc., which we only ever see in passing snippets. It’s good stuff.
Abbott Elementary, on the other hand, is much more grounded. It’s another riff on the mockumentary, and it works well. The setting is a west Philadelphia low-income elementary school, and the actors they’ve cast as teachers are truly impressive. The early-in-their-careers, want-to-make-a-difference Janine (a young black woman played by Quinta Brunson, who is also the show’s creator) and Mr. Hill, a woke gay white man (“Ta-nehisi Quotes” Janine calls him in episode 1), but also Mrs. Howard and Mrs. Schemmenti, the put-together, no-nonsense experienced teachers who’ve seen it all.
Actor Sheryl Lee Ralph is especially good as a seasoned kindergarten teacher, referring to herself on camera at various moments as “Barbara Howard, woman of God” and “a proud Christian woman,” etc. Nick and even Noah, who worked the kids’ school outreach program when he was still a police officer, have both attested to knowing teachers just like her.
Perhaps what I enjoy most (aside from the jokes) is the generous position the show takes toward everyone: the upstarts who want to change everything and make the world a better place, the teachers who live it day-in-day-out and are cynical yet effective, and especially the kids and their families. There are a lot of jokes, but nobody is the joke.
Anyway, what are you watching?
Honorable mention to the excellent The Good Place, a show I’ve watched twice but to me doesn’t lend itself to background viewing. The Good Place started off a little weird but evolved into a fantastic, accessible form of Theater of the Absurd that real human beings would actually like: easily swinging between wackiness and profundity, ending in silence but not despair. Oh, life, you crazy butthole!
I'd seen Abbott Elementary in my suggestions on... Hulu, maybe? But the other is totally new to me, so thanks for both! I've frequently got on The Office, Frasier (still so good, darn it), or (yes, I'm old) Taxi. I also really liked Superstore (the last season has some eye-rolly social justice nuttiness in a couple eps, but not egregious). I would concur that The Good Place isn't necessarily background fodder, but I love it so much. Grand Crew, on the other hand, is a perfect background show -- particularly if you liked Cougar Town. (I do a lot of computer work at times that doesn't require the language-processing part of my brain, so I frequently have something going at low volume to keep me company... I blame my latchkey-kid homework routine.)
Edit: Another surprisingly still-great treasure is Barney Miller (if you can find it).
Check out Resident Alien, now showing on SYFY. Alan Tudyk plays an alien stranded on Earth who has to try and fit in as a human being. Tudyk is just wonderful as the alien and the rest of the cast is great as well.
If you like absurdist humor, this is a show for you, although it's a full hour show.