NBC Finds a Hit with My Name is Earl

I readily confess it. I had given up on the network sitcom years ago…something about laugh tracks really irritates me. It's why I hated Friends. The laughter was so canned that I couldn't focus on anything else, and luckily I wasn't missing much. The three-camera style situation comedy developed in the 1950's has grown stale and tired.�

Happily enough for me and for anyone else in America that doesn't need to be spoon-fed the same limited rotation of jokes and visual gags; there is a new movement afoot. We have seen examples pop up in the past couple of years in the form of Scrubs and Arrested Development, among others, but I think the trend is starting to take hold on the network TV consciousness. NBC debuted what may be the standout comedy of the new season with My Name is Earl, a light-hearted and cynical approach at a man trying to make right things he did wrong so long ago.

Jason Lee (Dogma, Mumford) plays the unfortunate Earl, a man spurred to amend past mistakes, serious errors in judgment, and cruelties doled out since childhood. The reason is simple, really. He gets hits by a truck after winning a lottery and after getting involuntarily divorced by his fidelity-challenged wife, he hears Carson Daly attribute his own good fortune to karma. He decides to become a disciple at the house of Daly in what I think was a cheap cross-marketing ploy on NBC's part, but this new-found golden rule is the basis for the series and according to Earl, he can provide the writer's with over two hundred plots for years of entertainment at the NBC teat.

I am really not all that cynical, and the show isn't really all that "happy NBC slave working for the corporate overlord". That is good thing. Like I said earlier, the typical network sitcom drives me to the Discovery Channel all too often, but Earl made me laugh. It works for a couple of reasons. Jason Lee is a big asset, and while most people may not be familiar with the former professional skateboarder's extensive body of work, he has a certain natural ability to make not only others, but himself laugh at the same time. He seems to be enjoying the role, and he isn't sickly sentimental, even after he fixes his first boo-boo and the writers give him some hooky line in a voice over narration to close out the premiere episode.

The supporting cast is a nice change of pace from the typical stereotypes, and this is difficult since they really are just the stereotypical characters of the drunk and unemployed brother, the cheap and slutty white-trash ex-wife, the lazy Hispanic housekeeper for Earl's transient hotel, and the closeted gay man that Earl helps out by taking him to the gay bar. The show could fall victim to providing us smug portrayals that we have seen before, but Earl must have bought some decent writers, because the characters seem real, despite their one-dimensionality.

The best part of Earl is the superb cinematography and the production design. The film is slightly overexposed and gritty, giving everything a hazy quality, reflective of the morals of the show. The el Camino that Earl drives, the hotel where he lives, his ex-wife's cut-offs - they all add to the "verite" style of the show. This is not a world filled with models and full-sets of teeth, but rather a depressing town in the middle of nowhere and that is such a nice change of pace from the lofts of New York that no one could ever really afford.

Earl also abounds in non-linear story-telling methods, which maintain a quick pace that doesn't pause politely for the audience to laugh and catch up. The comedy may rely a bit heavily on this technique of pausing and showing past pranks, but it is only the first show, and they do have a bit of exposition to give us so that we can figure out why we should care about this dumb doofus that is probably getting exactly what he deserves if you think about it. But Earl and Earl have heart, and our unlikely hero sees the error of his ways, if it is only to better his own life and not to truly do any meaningful good in the world.

Earl may be the brightest new comedy coming out this fall. It has a quirky, interesting cast of characters (my favorite was Patty, the day-time hooker) and posseses what could be a decent enough hook. My fears are straightforward - could the gimmick wear thin and can the idea's be endless? I hope that this one can find a voice that plays with limits and boundaries, a freeing, if you will, from the standards of the everyday sitcom. Too many new shows are centered on these kinds of hooks, and to me it seems like they are dating themselves out of a nice long run and the promise of going into syndication. That's royalties, baby. Okay, okay, I really am that cynical.