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Review:
The Mike O'Malley Show
Written
by James Koonce, September 22nd, 1999
Click
here to read an
interview with Mike O'Malley done just before the show was canceled
in September 1999.
Thirty. Single.
Living in blue-collar New Haven with a guy named "Weasel", and
not going to Yale. (Or even Southern Connecticut State.) Safe
to say that at the outset of his new NBC series, guy's guy Mike
O'Malley doesn't exactly have a lot going for him. But that's
just as it should be in a pilot, of course. How will Mike change
things, turn his lackluster life around, maybe even get the girl
in the process?
Mike's best
friend Jimmy (Will Arnett) was jilted at the altar two years ago,
and as the premiere episode opens, we find that he's about to
get married again - to the same woman. Naturally Mike, as ad hoc
protector of his friend's virtue, is apoplectic. How could Jimmy
march so willingly back into the same mine field that nearly destroyed
him before? And more importantly, how could he violate the unspoken
code and do so without telling Mike first? It's a classic jumping
off point for a male-oriented story: one guy grows up and leaves
the brotherhood behind, and the other guy's not quite ready yet.
(Arrested development in males is a cherished tenet of television
shows; it's right behind twenty-five year old models in short
skirts playing brain surgeons, high-powered corporate attorneys,
and emergency medical technicians.)
Unable to
deal with the changes facing him, Mike at first flatly refuses
to attend the wedding. No amount of cajoling from Jimmy can sway
him - his mind's made up; she done his buddy wrong, and that's
the end of it. But in his moments alone (at least alone with us,
the viewers, with whom he shares his feelings and scenes from
his life), we see it's got nothing to do with right and wrong,
it's fear. Fear that life is passing him by, fear that he may
never have the opportunity to enjoy something like Jimmy and his
twice-intended have together. Mike's a terrified bundle of insecurity,
used to calming himself with a rock-solid life of routine, and
now the natural order has been violated. Big time.
Mike, as
it turns out, blew it with his own Yale PhD candidate girlfriend
Shawna (Missy Yager) several months before- she prodded him for
some kind of commitment, and he foolishly let her get away. So
he knows too well the opportunity value of second chances, though
he'd never say so to Jimmy. But one look at roommate Weasel (Mark
Rosenthal), and the instant flash of what his future will be like
(solitary, messy, and populated with strange smells) if he doesn't
make some changes, and pronto, is seared on his eyeballs forevermore.
(Weasel, for the record, needs no further explanation. He's exactly
what you'd expect.) So Mike swallows his manly pride and heads
off to the wedding, knowing in his heart he's doing the right
thing. Of course it's his lucky day - who should be there but
Shawna, giving Mike at least a chance at the second chance he'd
so desperately wanted.
Actor/comic
O'Malley, best known as consummate sports fan "The Rick" from
ESPN commercials, initially seemed like a long shot to get his
own series, relatively undistinguished from the pack of fellow
actors and comics as he was. Assembled like a hasty cross between
Norm Macdonald and Kevin James, he's a rumpled Everyguy, but he's
not the best rumpled Everyguy, and TV certainly has its share
of rumpled Everyguys. Yet his sensitivity imbues his TV self with
a genuine human frailty, and though TV Mike might hate like hell
to admit it, it's exactly what makes him special.
Simply reading
a synopsis of The Mike O'Malley Show makes it seem flat, like
territory covered before, and more than once. The group of guys,
the frat-house vibe, the commitment-phobic lead - been there,
done that. But the pilot episode had actual insight in a few instances
- Mike not only acknowledged that he'd screwed things up with
his girlfriend, he understood why. He was able to accept responsibility
for what had happened, but not sure how to make the changes that
deep in his heart he knew he wanted to make. It's very human,
and a far cry from some of the antics exhibited in other so-called
"regular guy" programming like the defunct Men Behaving Badly,
Two Guys and a Girl, or even The Drew Carey Show.
Of course,
there's a long road ahead. Premiere episodes are both blessed
and cursed - blessed in that they have the benefit of time: months
spent honing the story, the characters, the jokes before the season
begins; but cursed in that they bear the responsibility of introducing
a large amount of characters and situations in twenty-two short
minutes, hopefully making them instantly appealing. Modern viewership
is won or lost on the strength of a single episode, and with America's
itchy finger poised over the remote, it's yea or nay in a matter
of moments. And networks are no different. Shows are yanked with
increasing frequency after underperforming in their initial freshman
outings; gone forever are the days of "growing an audience." So
let's hope that Mike O'Malley's bag of tricks is big enough to
keep the series going, because he's already cleared the first
big hurdle - getting people to tune in the first time.
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