One Big Happy

What exactly is the point of creating such a comedy is beyond my understanding.

Ellen DeGeneres is serving as a producer and the show is about a lesbian who got pregnant from her bisexual best friend/roommate, so I guess it's about trying to get people more familiar, even more tolerable to "new forms" of family.

I didn't mention that her bff/roommate is married with...Kelly Brook (who plays a girl that he decided to marry after only one date) and they all live now together under the same roof.

I'm writing this review while watching the 2nd episode that Liz Feldman (the creator) wrote.

The script is lame as f.., the acting is terrible and the jokes are non existent. Add to all this the most annoying laughing track ever, that hits your ears every 3 to 5 seconds, and you have the recipe of a disaster.

It doesn't seem possible for this to improve in later episodes, so you better stay away and watch something else.

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Lizzy (Elisha Cuthbert) and Luke (Nick Zano) are lifelong best friends. She's an uptight lesbian and he's a charming womanizer. They follow up on a pledge to have a child together. Before she tells him that she's pregnant, he announces that he has met the love of his life and plans to marry the British Prudence (Kelly Brook) who needs help to stay in the country.

These are perfectly workable comic actors but they are given the broadest and most cheapest of material. I like Cuthbert but she's playing slightly against type as uptight. It doesn't always work but I do like the attempt. Zano is a beautiful man with loads of charm. Brook has two big assets and her wild big personality do grow on me. The biggest problem is that the writing is groan inducing most of the time. The friend characters are boring. If the writing isn't so bad, the actors could have salvage something.

There are positives to this show: the energy, the look of the show, decent cast (except the male lead, Nick Zano is a good straight man in other sitcoms, but terrible when allowed to emote)

His performance and the embarrassingly piped-in laugh-track, and 'woo' track, and the writing is corny. So far, of the post 'Happy Endings' alum, this is the worst. Marry Me and Weird Loners are far superior. Benched was even a little better than One Big Happy. New Girl with Marlon Wayans Jr, doesn't really count as he left the show and returned to it. The best of these don't rely on the fake laugh track. I'm starting to loathe Big Bang Theory too - which relies too heavily on it.

All in all, the gags, as quirky and loud as they are, don't work. But there are worse shows.

I really enjoyed this show, and no, I'm not being paid to say that. I love the characters, the dialogue has plenty of snap, crackle, and pop, and the producers of Smallville, among other shows, owe Kelly Brock an apology for writing such a blah character for her that American audiences didn't get to see what a charismatic presence she can be. I enjoyed the stories and storylines not just because they were interesting in and of themselves, not just because it was nice to see lesbian characters in stories that neither ignored their identity nor treated it as something inherently different from all the other situations that are mined for comedy, but because they're not the same old sitcom storylines we've seen over and over and over.

Also, I want pretty much everything in Prudence's wardrobe, especially the dresses, especially the dress in the pilot with the pink print. Prudence included would be nice.

Elisha Cuthbert is a star, but this character is poorly conceived and poorly written. I'd love to see her in something with smarter writing. It's not too late to bring back Happy Endings, is it? The other characters don't give us much to latch on to. Nick Zano is white bread. Kelly Brook seems to be acting with her boobs. Meanwhile, I'm not a fan of laugh tracks in general, but I find this one particularly loud and annoying to the point of distraction. I'd love to see Elisha Cuthbert in something with smarter writing. Is it too late to bring back Happy Endings?

One Big Happy appears to have been hastily conceived and dashed off. After watching 2 eps, it's off my list.