Many animated shows struggle to find their stride and their true identity in their first season. Family Guy was not an instant hit. Neither were The Simpsons. But in all successful series you can always see through the rough spots and see a good show coming through.
FX’s Unsupervised is having that kind of start in its first season. Gary (Justin Long) and Joel (David Hornsby) are best friends but don’t have any idea or direction in life due to their lack of supervision. There’s a lot of potential, some well-written jokes a fun voice cast, and some great visual gags, but after tonight’s nod to baseball, “Field of Dreams… and Dogs” there still remains a little unevenness. Hang in there though because there are at least five reasons to stick with first season to see if they can tighten up the show.
5. Russ and his smelly arm cast – Looking like a little pudgy Brad Pitt (in one of his bad hair moments) wearing adult sized glasses and Sean John active wear, Russ is rumored to be mentally insane. He hangs out with the dregs under the bleachers and when embarrassed he pulls his arm in a cast to his nose to take a whiff of it. He’s so creepy and bizarre but strangely likeable. We’ve only seen him in bits and bites but we can’t wait for him to be a bigger factor or featured in future episodes.
4. Darius – Played by Romany Malco (40-Year Old Virgin) this TV-addicted, deep-voiced classmate blames his shortcomings on his genetics and black stereotypes but he’s not trying to overcome. He’s just skating by and acts as Gary and Joel’s voice of reason. I’d like to say that Darius is 100% Malco but his character gets some great animation and steals almost every scene he appears in.
3. Gary and Joel’s family – As demented an upbringing as both had, it’s a miracle either is still alive. You’ll find out by the third episode that Joel came from a line of tile contractors. His parents had him late in life and his brother is in his forties. So he’s practically raised himself, while Gary’s father abandoned him and his stepmother, Carol. When Gary does Joel’s laundry in the Pilot, he tells Joel that his underwear disintegrated, which is believable when you consider these two are on their own, but when Joel mentions that they were originally hand-me-downs from his brother and are probably over 25 years old, you can tell how twisted and dark some of the jokes are.
2. The Innocence of Gary and Joel – It’s hard not to see the lead characters as nothing more than refined versions of Beavis and Butthead at first glance–the similar color palette and character design does them no favors. But where they separate themselves from MTV’s gruesome twosome is how innocent and sweet Gary and Joel are. They don’t actively do drugs even though they’re surrounded by users; they have compassion for everyone… literally everyone.
They don’t always know how to go about attaining happiness, but they do know what the good things in life are. They have incredible school pride even making up their own school song; they built their own lake of sewage to swim in, they decorate their bedroom in horror and fake blood so that girls will cozy up to them in fear. They’re written as if they got all of their knowledge off the television, monster truck rallies, playground talk and hearsay but somewhere along the way they absorbed a charm that’s really contagious.
1. Megan – Played by Kristen Bell (House of Lies), this pathetic character tries to come up with clubs for people to join so she can trick them into hanging out with her. She writes plays so that she can play the parts. Her former friends are developing physically turning heads while she remains flat-chested. Her best friend is her mom and while Megan is sort of sad, she’s also sort of great. Megan tries to live the wholesome life but her lack of social life leaves her no choice but to hang out with Gary, Joel and Darius and Bell is absolutely terrific rattling off insanely funny lines of desperation and loser-ville.
One scene from the second episode, “Rich Girl” captures a lot of what works in Unsupervised. Feeling rejected the gang attempts to use Gary’s stepmother’s bong to smoke weed and escape their misery. Yet only Megan winds up using to come up with a plan that the boys carry out.
Gary: How much do I put in?
Joel: I don’t know, just fill it up, I want to get frickin’ high as hell!
Darius: So anyways, moms caught me watching one of those NC-17 joints, right? Took away my TV privileges for a month. What am I supposed to do now? This is the shit that drives me to drugs.
Joel: What about you Megan?
Megan: Ally’s right, I’m a loser and I don’t have any friends. Maybe I do need to loosen up a bit.
Gary: What about us? We’re your friends.
Megan: You guys like everyone, you don’t count.
Joel: What about the foreign host program?
Megan: I only signed up for that so I can meet people and force them to hang out with me.
Darius: Ooh that’s some twisted, Glamorous Housewives shit right there.
Megan: Yep. So are we going to do some marijuana or what? Darius, you know how to work this thing right?
Darius: Black people don’t know how to use bongs. That’s some white people shit right there.
Hopefully Unsupervised continues to round out into a good show that catches on. It certainly has plenty of good pieces and parts, and there has been some time invested in establishing all the characters (played by Alexa Vega, Kaitlin Olson, Maria Bamford and Fred Armisen), but hopefully the show will fall into its groove and be another reliable FX comedy by the middle of its first season. You can catch it Thursdays on FX at 10:30pm after Archer.
