(October
2nd, 2007. - Editor)
Bill English (The Pavement),
Nick Kroll (Arranged), Dash Mihok (Hollywoodland), Kaitlin Doubleday (Catch Me If You Can), John Heard (Prison Break)
and Stephanie
Lemelin (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation)
star in the half hour situation comedy Cavemen, airing Tuesdays on ABC.
Throughout the ages, as humans have populated the Earth, the Cavemen
have been quietly continuing on their own path of evolution. Today they
live along side of regular people, but they are careful to keep with
their own kind. At least they were. Now Joel (English) has started to
date Kate (Doubleday), a human girl, and he refuses to apologize to his
friend Nick (Kroll), who thinks they should date within their own kind. Cavemen
is a unique buddy comedy that offers a clever twist on stereotypes and
turns race relations on their head. Inspired by the popular Geico
Insurance commercials, the series looks at life through the eyes of the
ultimate outsiders, three modern cavemen, as they struggle to find
their place in the world. Despite their attempts at assimilation, Nick
doesn’t believe mainstream society will ever completely accept them,
Jamie seems to take it all in stride and Joel straddles the middle, torn
between his friends, his more traditional values and his loving fiancée.
This comedy has been the joke of the fall season, since it was
announced in May that ABC had started development on a sitcom based on
the characters of a commercial series. Even Geico was sick of these
guys by the time fall rolled around, but they flogged their
commercials all summer, just in case this long shot paid off. ABC took
another approach, refusing to let potential advertisers or TV critics
see the debut episode on advance DVD, as was done with just about
every other pilot episode this season. Now that the debut episode has
aired we can all see why the network was in no hurry to let this out.
In fact the rumor is that this show was extensively retooled over the
summer after test audiences panned the first effort. All of that
aside, what matters is what made it to the screen.
Minus all the hype and the negative chatter what arrived on the screen
is a character drama that was so busy setting up the characters and
the circumstances that there was very little time for comedy. If this
one is to blossom into a sitcom, episode two have better come out of
the gate funny and stay that way for the full half hour. The negative
press was strike one against this series and the soft effort on the
pilot episode is strike two. My compliments to writer Joe Lawson for
somehow creating a workable situation. But I don't think he can
continue to craft a world were these guys are interesting and funny.
The television viewing audience has a very short attention span. The
flat first episode killed any buzz there was around this series. It
will take an amazing effort to save this one.
-- Editor --
