Workplace comedies can be funny while staying at the workplace. Barney Miller demonstrated that. Where they fall down is when they are split into a workplace comedy and a domestic comedy. Rarely are domestic comedies funny and busting up the dynamic of a show makes for jarring transitions between funny and dull. Life With Bonnie can be funny when she is at work. It is NOT funny when she is at home. Her husband is a nonentity. Her children are unmemorable. Her housekeeper can deliver a line SO GIVE HER A JOB AT THE BLOODY STUDIO! For a supposedly funny person Bonnie Hunt is best as a straightman. A good straightman is valuable SO USE THAT SKILL MORE! Concentrate on the show’s strong suit, the interviews. It’s funniest when the scripts says, “Bonnie introduces guest and mayhem ensues.” Make David Duchovney a regular. Put the show on later so you can let the cast go nuts. David Allen Grier can be very funny SO LET HIM.
I hate watching a show with some potential being wasted because of some bizarre corporate need to make it conventional. ABC should understand that what success Life With Bonnie has had is despite, not because of, the scenes at home. And NOBODY, outside of their immediate families, is watching it for the husband or the kids.
Her fondness for improv turned me off this show. Professional writers exist for a reason: so you won’t look like a high-school acting student fumbling around trying to think of something funny to say while ther camera’s on.
That’s why she has to stay the straightman and not TRY to be funny. Funny is what guest stars are for. Personally, I never found Bonnie Hunt to be the pile of yucks that TV critics do, but she has the show and it, itself, has potential. Okay, we get rid of her, too, and let David Alan Grier do the interviews.
If you haven’t seen it, the David Duchovny episode is on tonight, 8:30 Eastern.
I really like Bonnie Hunt, and I really want to love this show. But I don’t. I like it more than most sitcoms, but it’s not a show that I think is going to be around for a long time. I agree that moving it to the workplace is the way to improve the show. I don’t mind the family, but it’s nothing special. The morning talk show has a lot of potential for comedy–I love Duchovny playing a character and more guest stars doing that would be great, but she could also have, say Bette Midler as Bette Midler doing publicity for her concert tour or Johnny Depp hyping his latest movie (except for some reason, he’d never actually get to talk about the movie and thus comedy ensues).