Accidentally on Purpose - Attack of the 50 Foot Woman

Network: CBS
Time: Mondays, 8:30-9:00pm
Cast: Jenna Elfman, Jon Foster, Ashley Jensen, Lennon Parham, Nicolas Wright

Summary: Billie manipulates Zack into setting up the nursery.  Meanwhile, Davis gets a job working at a gay bar.

Review: Dear CBS Network Executives, please please please please please don't cancel Accidentally on Purpose.  It's a really funny show, and I think you'd be doing it a disservice if you don't give it more time to develop.

As a said in my very first review of AoP, I went into this show expecting the worst and was more than pleasantly surprised.  And with every episode I fall a little more in love with this show and it's wonderful characters.

While this episode's main focus was the fledgling Billie/Zack relationship, it was Davis who stole the show.  Davis got a job at a gay bar after lying to them and telling them he was gay (being, as Davis is, quite unaware that you don't actually have to be gay to work at a gay bar).  And he really got into his new job, listening and offering relationship advice as a good bartender does... right up until the point when one of the men asked him out.  And, of course, instead of being honest, Davis said he had a boyfriend---Zack.

Everyone knows a Zack and Davis.  They're completely realistic 22-year-olds.  Sometimes they obsessed with getting the right girl (and often, Davis, failing), and sometimes they're just two guys hanging around doing guy stuff that us girls don't even understand.  So when Davis asks Zack for help getting out of his pants, Zack barely bats an eye, even if the ensuing scene is hysterical for the audience.  Showing Zack behaving like a normal 22-year-old guy with Davis is great, because he tends to act fairly mature when he's with Billie.  Sure, he has his goofy moments with her, moments where he's clueless or stupid, but he's stepped up pretty well in light of this whole baby thing.  But seeing him with Davis reminds everyone that he's still just a kid sometimes.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the episode, Billie is getting relationship advice from her sister (who is probably more than a little insane, but that's okay).  Abby's suggestions?  Manipulate Zack into fixing up the nursery so the box with the crib in it won't be sitting in the living room anymore.

And it works.  She does manage to get Zack to put the crib together.  But it backfires a little.  I'm going to leave the details out for those who haven't seen it.  This entire story is telling though.  Billie and Zack fell into a very serious relationship.  They've been having fun together, and they're both serious about taking care of the baby, but they never muddled through the weird parts of an early relationship, like how to take two separate lives and merge them together under one roof.  There are bound to be growing pains, and I'm glad this show gave us some of them.  If everything's too perfect in a television relationship, we complain.  If it's too awkward, we complain.  Accidentally on Purpose is one of the few shows with just the right amount of awkwardness that's balanced by the right amount of sweetness and genuine love between them.

There was a third story in this episode.  Abby was looking for a gay man to help her go from "drabby" to "fabby."  It had worked for Olivia, and now she was hoping it would help her.  There's not much to say about this one, except that Lennon Parham is awesome, and she makes me laugh every single time she opens her mouth.

CBS is moving this to Wednesdays soon (in March, I believe), and I hope that's not the first movement toward the door because I really think this show has the potential to be as highly rated as HIMYM or Big Bang Theory (which, by the way, was not a ratings-winner for its first several seasons either).  I hope CBS gives it that shot.

Favorite lines:
Abby: It's like killing someone with carbon monoxide.  Smile, smile, smile, dead.

Abby: Manipulation is one of the greatest tools in a woman's toolbox.  That and the vagina.

Davis (comforting a gay bar patron): There isn't a man here who would want a piece of that.
Jerome: There isn't?
Davis: No.
Jerome: So... what time do you get off?
Davis: 2am
[beat]
Davis: Ohhhh....

Rating:
[5] Excellent
[4] Good
[3] Average
[2] OK
[1] Bad

Accidentally on Purpose - The Odd Couples

Network: CBS
Time: Mondays, 8:30-9:00pm
Cast: Jenna Elfman, Jon Foster, Ashley Jensen, Lennon Parham, Nicolas Wright, Grant Show

Summary: In an effort to find out how they are as a couple, Billie and Zack go out on double dates with first Abby and Nick, then Davis and his new girlfriend.  But both dates backfire and leave everyone mad at them.

Review: To my embarrassment, I'd completely forgotten that we ended before the break with a marriage proposal from Zack and a declaration of mutual love between them.  So I definitely had a shocked moment when the first scene in the episode was Zack walking in and making out with Billie.

Once I had my bearings, my thoughts went from, "WHAT?!?" to "Aww..."  Zack and Billie have always have had a fun relationship, and they managed to become a couple without losing the back-and-forth that I've enjoyed so far this season.

Billie has decided that, before she will accept Zack's marriage proposal, they should first see how they are as a couple when dealing with other people.  Which means Zack has to bond with Abby's weird husband Nick.  Nick, who likes hospitals and engineering and finding out all the different ways he can get sick doing something, is a little odd for Zack, who likes to surf, drive a van and be spontaneous.  But the interaction between them is funny, and it leads to a very sweet moment between Abby and Nick, where he admits that he knows he's weird and that he loves that she loves him for it.  It's the first time I've had any real positive emotions directed at Nick, but that scene really endeared me to him.  And to Abby, who I've really only liked because she's Billie's sister.

Then Billie and Zack try their hand with Davis and his new girlfriend.  Did I mention that Davis has been lying to her and telling her he's Dave Grohl's younger brother?  And that the only reason she likes Davis at all is because she thinks he'll help her meet Dave Grohl?  Yeah, Billie doesn't do so well with that part.

The Davis/girlfriend storyline does give us another wonderful Abby and Davis moment, however. Abby, it turns out, is way cooler than Billie is when it comes to lying to a woman to get her into bed, and she definitely steps up and has Davis's back on this one.  The Abby/Davis relationship is something that the writers have only just played with a little, but the unlikely combination is always good for a laugh.  I like a show that's not afraid to play all its characters off each other.  So often, a show sticks to the pairings it establishes early on (Billie and her friends, Zack and his friends, Billie and Zack).  I like that this show is not only willing to mingle the groups, but seemingly eager to do it.

My favorite thing about Accidentally on Purpose however, is that it never ceases to surprise me.  Just when I expect them to go for one joke, they turn around and smack you with something else.  Billie is established early on as a self-confident woman who isn't afraid to tell people how she feels, and that trait is often called on for its comedic value.  Zack is more mature than most guys his age, but sometimes he's just a 22-year-old.  I love that this show doesn't take the easy route with its comedy.  It's rarely physical, relying on wit and character interaction to be the humor.

The only downside to this episode was the conspicuous absence of Olivia.  I know this episode was focused on the relationship between the sisters, but it was also about friendship, and Olivia should have been there (I'm sure her absence had nothing to do with the show and was probably the result of a conflict with the shooting schedule or another project she was working on).  Plus, I enjoy watching Olivia's interaction with Abby.

All in all, another winner for Accidentally on Purpose, which is moving to Wednesday nights sometime in March.  I know CBS is worrying about its ratings, but I hope they decide to keep it on, because I think this show could only be made better by the addition of a baby.

Favorite line:
Davis: Yes, people, my new girlfriend has a credit card.
Billie: Girlfriend?
Zack: Credit card?  When did this happen?
Davis: While you two were shacked up grossing out your baby.  Yeah, I stumbled upon a new method to pick up chicks.  [flashes back to lying to this girl about being Dave Grohl's little brother]
Zack: You dog.  That's awesome.
Billie: If your new method is lying to chicks in bars, I hate to tell you, but every man in history has beat you to it.

Rating:
[5] Excellent
[4] Good
[3] Average
[2] OK
[1] Bad

Accidentally on Purpose - Pilot

Network: CBS

Time: Mondays, 8:30-9:00pm

Cast: Jenna Elfman, Jon Foster, Ashley Jensen, Lennon Parham, Grant Show, Nicolas Wright

Creator: Claudia Lonow

Based on memoir by Mary F. Pols

Summary: Accidentally on Purpose is a new sitcom on CBS starring Jenna Elfman and Jon Foster. Billie (Elfman), a thirty-something newspaper film critic, meets Zack (Foster) one night in a bar. Long story short, they have the one-night stand that every 22-year-old wannabe chef has nightmares about--the kind that gets the girl pregnant. Billie decides she's going to keep the baby, and Zack decides he's going to man up and be a father. So he moves into her house, and they begin their life as platonic friends who happen to be having a baby together.

Review: Because I didn't want to start with a bad review of Fame, I'll make my first post about the pilot episode of a brand new series, Accidentally on Purpose. Now, if you're anything like me, you watched the previews for and read the synopsis of this show and went, "What a stupid idea. The concept is totally overdone, and the premise is both unbelievable and cliched at the same time."

Or maybe that was just me.

Either way, I only watched this show because it was on between How I Met Your Mother and Two and a Half Men (and kudos to CBS for its good scheduling there). I'm the first to admit I went in skeptical, and I certainly wasn't prepared to give it its fair chance. Fortunately, it was good enough to surprise me.

Let's start with the main character. Billie isn't the typical thirty-something as portrayed in other shows. Yes, her biological clock is ticking (which is sort of what gets her in this mess to begin with). Yes, she's a bit neurotic sometimes. But all in all, she's got a good job; she's confident in herself as an employee, a woman, and a friend; and she's very grounded. She's exactly the kind of woman I'd like to be in my 30s. And, most importantly, she's exactly the kind of woman you like. Which is good for Claudia Lenow, the creator of Accidentally on Purpose, because it means more of us are going to keep watching it.

So then there's Zack. Now, in most sitcoms, he'd be the classic underachiever who hooked up with an older woman and now got himself into a mess, right? Well... he did hook up with an older woman. And I guess he got himself into a mess. But underachiever? No way. Zack handles this situation like any woman would die for. He decides right away that he wants to be a father for his child, which means being there for Billie during her pregnancy. And he's smart. In so many situations like this, the young dad-to-be has utterly no concept of what pregnancy is. He asks stupid questions and makes completely inappropriate comments. Not Zack (that dubious honor is reserved for his best friend, the underachieving slacker named Davis (Nicolas Wright) who's futon was the site of conception). Zack is sweet and sensible and shows a level of commitment that Billie couldn't hope for from most of the older men she knows.

Now, the main characters are great, but any viewer knows that it's the supporting cast that really makes a show, especially a sitcom. And Accidentally on Purpose has that in droves. There's Billie's best friend Olivia (Ashley Jensen), who is the Sex and the City-generation's answer to the thirty-something, and whose often not-great advice contributes to Billie's situation. There's Billie's sister Abby (Lennon Parham), who may not have gotten the brains in the family, but she seems to have the relationship skills. There's Zack's best friend Davis, who I spoke about earlier, and whose relationship with Billie may actually be funnier than any other relationship combination in the show.

And of course there has to be the drama. We'll call him James (Grant Show). James is Billie's boss. I mean, ex-boyfriend. I mean, love interest. I mean... well, you get the point. He's the wedge that drives the potential Zack and Billie relationship apart, at least for now.

What made this pilot so good? I don't know. It could be the great characters that just beg you to like them. It could be the snappy dialogue and the one-liners that had me laughing until my sides hurt. Or it could just be the wonderfully real relationships that develop as a result of this baby. No matter what it is, I know where I'm going to be on Mondays at 8:30 for awhile.

Rating:

[1] Run in the other direction

[2] Don't bother

[3] Worth a watch if you've got nothing better to do

[4] Definitely try it out

[5] A total keeper