The Neighbors

I don't have much hope for the future of The Neighbors. Sure, it's wildly funny, Toks Olagundoye (who I've never seen before)is brilliant, and the show's wacky sensibility and great sight gags (like a formation of pie-carrying aliens) make it the season's best new comedy, but way too many people just don't like it. The reviews have been very poor (as opposed to the almost universal praise heaped on the terrible Ben and Kate), and the average rating on IMDb and TV.com is low.

This is Better Off Ted all over again. It's wildly funny but for some reason only a select group of us seems to recognize the fact. I am just bracing itself for its inevitable cancellation, and wish Toks and the equally funny and obscure Simon Templeman better luck with their future careers.

Having been underwhelmed by the trailer, I found the pilot much funnier than I had expected. It's essentially a show about the trials and tribulations of family life, with overtones of "The Coneheads" and shades of "Monty Python".

The pilot has laugh out loud moments and the cast did a good job. I have a fondness for sight gags and there are some great ones in the opener. The premise was set up with ruthless efficiency (that's a compliment); the creative strength and viability of the series will only be apparent after a few regular episodes. It has the potential to attract a broad audience; kids should find it funny and anyone who likes what I will call absurdist "British" humor will find it a refreshing change from the swathes of sitcoms about how awful it is to be in your 20s. This show is different, in a potentially good way, and it deserves a shot. I hope that it gets a run to see where it goes. It certainly has a prime time slot.

This is a cute series, light hearted and fun. It treats one taken-for- granted subject of our human life per episode and it manages to turn it on all sides in a nice way...does what very well exactly what'the new normal' fails terribly: produces interesting characters that we care about, nice stories, criticize slightly some aspects of daily life that are less than ideal and reframe our daily life, while actually manage to be funny and not fall in an overly judgemental storyline. OK, it might not be the comedy of the century, but its really catching some steam lately and it deserves proper time and attention to develop. I read some awful reviews of the pilot and i totally disagree with most of them. This is a nice series, with nice and funny actors, good story and quite some laughs. Very enjoyable...let's give it some support!

I signed up for an account with IMDb just so I could show support for this sitcom.

It seems like 99% of the sitcoms out there are bent on using sexual, crass humor to attain and retain their audiences. Most new sitcoms that come out, you can hold your breath without passing out before a crude joke breaks. It gets old.

So when a show comes out with a fun premise and actually makes me laugh WITHOUT being crude and crass, I enjoy every moment of it. Because inevitably it will get bad reviews and be canceled after (usually) one season-- if that.

So here's my take, in a nutshell:

The character are fun. Simon Templeman and Toks Olagundoye are hilarious as alien parents. Great delivery and timing, and Toks can do just about any accent under the sun. Watching them (and the rest of the cast) tackle "normal human" trappings has thus far been creative and fun-- and CLEAN. Which to me just makes it more classy. Supposedly I have a good sense of humor, so I'm hoping that others can find the humor in this show as well. It's still early, but I feel like there's a lot in the tank for growth in the characters. And the amount of "normal human" trappings they can explore are so vast, I feel it can last for a while.

For example, they just took on the subject of sex. Yes, they could have gotten pretty crass. This episode was, to be honest, the one that would have me either continuing to watch the show (if they did it with class), or turning it off. Throughout the episode, I felt they handled it really well, which was (again) refreshing.

Granted, this isn't the type of sitcom that's going to run for a decade and all that, but it's a breath of fresh air and I am discouraged that it's only getting (at time of review) a 5.4 out of 10. Sadly, though, I'm not surprised.

I know this review doesn't help with in-depth analysis, but I hope it at least sheds some light on a sitcom that doesn't (at this point) follow in the footsteps of the same old tired, dirty, trite junk that seems to bombard us from every angle.

3rd Rock from the Sun is a tough act to follow. The Neighbors does a pretty good job, but uses wit and timing instead of zaniness and slapstick comedy to get its laughs. That makes it consistently funny, just not side-splittingly funny. Naming all of the aliens after sports heroes was an inspired choice-- they'll never run out of funny names (a tot named Dick Butkus?), and the fact that the aliens are dorky doubles down on the running gag. So are all their matching outfits/uniforms that remind us of golf clothes from the 1970s.

Also on the upside, some of the cast members are real gems. I don't know where Toks Olagundoye has been up til now, but she's got real movie star power as the glamorous alien mom. Her rapid fire back and forth with alien husband Simon Templeman, who has perfect comedic timing and never wastes a good line, are my favorite parts of the show. Jami Gertz and Max Charles are good enough as the earthling straight man/woman, but I think maybe too much of the plot compares their unfunny ordinariness to the aliens' backwards/upside down view of what humanity is like. The child actors are pretty good, too, even if the show relies a little too much on alien child Ian Patrick's precociousness. Clara Mamet is exceptional as the brooding, frighteningly calculating and cynical teenager.

I was worried that after a few episodes the running gags would wear thin and they'd run out of ideas. Not so at all! I've just finished the Thanksgiving episode and, if anything, it's getting better and better.