Notes from the Underbelly

as new parents (we have a 4 year old and an 8 month old) and friends of a couple who JUST got pregnant, there are definitely a lot of moments that resonate with us ... my wife probably enjoys this a bit more than I do.

i can't help but finding myself comparing this to a "grown up" version of Friends (of which i was not a big fan) - maybe it is the three couple format (only two official, i know - if this thing plays out long enough, Cooper and the scruffy guy will hook up, count on it!) The main gal reminds me of Rachel, the very pregnant one Monica (think high school, fatsuit Monica) the scruffy guy is like Joey, and the main guy is Ross-like. Even the lawyer gal has Phoebe elements ...

anyway, there are some funny moments, a lot of annoying ones ... we'll probably tune in as long as it's on, but won't cry if it gets canceled.

The trials of parenthood are familiar grounds for comedy and ABC's Notes From The Underbelly, which follows an expecting couple, tries to tread the same territory, but the only thing remarkable about Notes is how miserably it fails at it. There's no sign of originality to Notes as it wrings its premise dry of any laughs with bland jokes about pregnancy and motherhood repeated endlessly. Notes expects the humor to come from its theme of 'adventures from parenthood', but as it pushes that point with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, the jokes are too obvious to be funny. To its credit, it's not totally unbearable but it's hard to think of a reason to tune in when there's so many better ways to spend your time.

There have been many vapid, watery attempts at an appealing comedy show in the past, and I'll sure there will be plenty more to come in the fall.

Luckily, this particular show is among the good batch. The humor is very consistent, and there's never a dramatic moment without a comical follow-up to compensate. It says to you 'Hm, even though it's obligatory that we must have these touching moments of overwrought sentiment, we can make up for that by immediately trailing this with an insanely witty bit, most likely to be delivered by the neurotic husband.'

It's clever, it's witty, and it possesses an pleasantly engaging title that screams for folks to give the name a double-glance, frown iffy-ly, say "Why, what is this 'Underbelly' you speak of?" and eventually (hopefully) succumb to their meddling curiosity and watch this show.

Please add a minus rating scale for this show because the current ratings system does not come close to indicating the level of the utter awfulness this show attains. To quote Edward Norton's character in Fight Club it feels like a "copy of a copy of a copy of a copy" and so on. The characters are parrots reciting poorly written jokes with seemingly no idea what they are actually saying. Tectonic plates have better comic timing and the blonde chick with glasses has played at least 3 separate manifestations of the same character all with increasing levels of failure. The creators/writers of this show should be brought in front of The Hague and tried for crimes against the art of storytelling. Their sentence: cancellation, oh wait that will probably happen anyway. Their sentence: banishment to writing for reality television.

At its best, it is mildly clever. Not funny or entertaining, but clever. At its worst, it is pretentious and canned. A lot of the dialog feels like dialog. People wouldn't talk this way, ever, except if they are a character on a TV show that is killing itself to be cool.

Random characters are thrown in to say things that people would never say, so that the characters can chime in with a witty retort. When comedy has to be forced in the first episode, well, you have to ask yourself where it is going to go from there.

There are some good actors involved, though some seem out of their league. (I wouldn't name them, that's rude.)

It's funny. At the Aspen Comedy festival, I heard the creator of "The Winner" say that everyone seems to think that single-camera shows are automatically cool. I love "The Office" and loved "Arrested Development", and like "My Name is Earl." This show does not compare.

Basically, I'll be surprised if this one comes back.