Notes from the Underbelly

With already cramped, busy lives, it is a lovely change of pace to have a 30- minute stress reliever such as Notes From the Underbelly. The characters are easy to relate to, the scenes are often realistic, and the show brings a sense of humorous comfort to those preparing for parenthood. While addressing many common pregnancy truths and fallacies, Underbelly is laugh out loud funny- like Scrubs without the medical scene. Lauren, the main character, brings the humor of watching Jessica Simpson's absentmindedness in a more realistic and "pregnancy brain" related way. Cooper brings the romantic scandal of Desperate Housewives without the "above-and-beyond-reality" drama. Julie brings the innocence of Pheobe from Friends, but adds a kick of attitude to it. Andrew, Lauren's husband, acts like Will Turner in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie, taking care of Lauren throughout her pregnancy while being thankful that he was lucky enough to have someone as beautiful as her love him.

Underbelly deserves to live and laugh for a few more seasons.

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.

I think this is a hilarious, honest, and funny show. No, it's not exactly highbrow, but c'mon...it's television! This reminds me of the BBC show "Coupling." I was also thinking that I like that these people look pretty "normal." The women aren't emaciated, the guys are cute but not in a cookie-cutter Hollywood way. I also like that they address the common myths, problems, ideas, situations and fears of new parents. I also find a lot of this pretty easy to relate to - I have the friend who is the crazy new mom (Julie) and the friend who is scared but excited about being pregnant (Lauren), and the cynical friend who will never have kids (Cooper). I'm not a laugh-out-loud at the TV kind of person, but I do find myself laughing out loud a lot at this show.

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.

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.