Situation: Comedy, Episode 4: We Know Funny When We See It

Welcome to episode four of Situation: Comedy, the show that follows the trials and tribulations of several young writers attempting to create their own sitcom pilot. In episode three, we saw the writers begin to work through the casting process.

But, before we look at this week’s episode, let me go on a short rant and rave about the Bravo network. Bravo seems to be really jerking this program around. The show started off on Tuesday evening, where it seemed to get an adequate audience. After three weeks in that slot, they moved the show to the TV graveyard of Friday nights. I don’t know the Nielsen numbers, but really, how low do the numbers for a minor cable-network show have to go before the executives panic like this?

But, no matter, they moved the show to Friday and replaced it on Tuesday with the umpteenth showing of Kathy Griffin or Bobby Brown. And then, when I tune in on Friday, to watch Situation: Comedy, I find that the first twenty minutes has been pre-empted by an informercial for a deer-baiting chemical so that you can shoot a helpless animal as it searches for a mate.

Fortunately, the first ten minutes of any episode of a reality show is taken up by the opening credits and a recap of what happened last episode. Then, figure in a few commercials, and I probably haven’t missed more than about five minutes of real action. And, a quick review of the blogs and video at the Bravo website fills in that gap nicely.

Still, Bravo isn’t helping this show out at all by showing it only once a week, on a Friday, and then pre-empting it when they do show it. I used to respect Bravo for supporting new and risky shows. Not any more, thank you.

Okay, so now we can get on to what’s left of the show. I’ll try to keep my bitterness to a minimum and pretend to be my bright, cheery self.

This week, the writers must present their scripts to the NBC executives. Except in the first episode, the folks at NBC haven’t seen the scripts at all since the writers began rewriting them. This could be a big step for them, since, if the executives don’t like the scripts, they may have to be starting all over from scratch.

They have the next two days to work on the script and create some really big jokes that will just knock the socks off the executives. On a personal note, I really don’t see how they can do that. I mean, they’ve been working on these scripts for years and then for a few weeks on this show. You just can’t crack a whip and tell them to be funnier. It’s like demanding that spinach taste better by yelling at it.

We then see the teams hammering away at their jokes, trying to be funnier. Shoe tells us that it can sometimes take an hour just to get one joke to be the funniest possible. Mark then adds that, even after all that work, they might throw it out anyway.

As the winner of last week’s State of the Union thing, Mark and Shoe get to meet with the set designers from Will & Grace to start picking out sets and costumes for their characters. Unfortunately, Stan and Maxx come along and veto most of their choices and pick better things. They suppose that straight boys don’t know TV style (Hey, I didn’t write that. You can read that on Stan and Maxx’s blog).

As for the script and jokes, Stan recalls that, on the show Roseanne, the writers would create 2 or 3 jokes for every scene and then let Roseanne decide which joke to use. They suggest that this might be a good strategy for the writers to use for their new scripts.

Maxx points out that there are some joke writers that earn $10,000 a day to write really twisted jokes. Man, that’s a job I want.

They discuss the two scripts and how the writers need to really get to know their characters. Once you really know the character, you can just tell whether a scene or joke fits their personality. A good writer will instantly know whether or not they’ve hit the nail on the head.

Back in the office, David and Andrew, of Stephen’s Team, still think they can get George Wendt to try out for the script. Andrew has used his connections to get the script to George and George loved it. He calls Andrew at the office and says that he’s interested. Andrew apologizes in that they only have $409 to pay him for appearing. George says that the script is good enough that he is interested anyway.

They rush off to tell Maxx and she is blown away. But then, she adds, that crazier things have happened before. She tells us that one of the biggest assets for that team is that they are relentless. Faithful viewers may remember episode two where they spent the whole episode railing about the fact that they had to use three cameras instead of the more classy single-camera setup. Of course, they were browbeaten into submission that time. But, their relentlessness paid off this time.

Next up is the second readings for casting the parts for Stephen’s Life. As you may recall, two actors were called back for many of the key roles and no actor was accepted for the central role of Stephen.

But, three young actors are now present to try out for that role. Plus, the various actors for the other parts are ready to read their parts with the other actors. We are treated to a montage of the actors all reading out their parts, must to the enjoyment of the writers and producers. Frankly, any of the actors shown would do a great job.