Pliot Capsule Reviews: WHITNEY

Whitney:

“Whitney” delivers the storm of awful pretty much anyone who’s been exposed to the barrage of advertising would expect. Hackneyed observations about the staid nature of marriage lifted almost unchanged from star/showrunner Whitney Cummings’ stand-up special pervade throughout. The only thing worse than listening to her loudly bray her own own nonsense is watching the cast of bit-part staples (like “30 Rock’s” Maulik Pancholy) and other stand-ups (like the bland Chris D’Elia) say them instead. Nothing about this is innately funny – even the tried-and-true impact editing used by pretty much every sitcom of the last fifty years, where a character goes from checking on a friend to see if they’re ill straight to a wailing ambulance, gets nary a chuckle.

While the first act largely introduces the characters and their relationships, this never comes across as an ensemble show. Unlike, say, “Cougartown,” which has made its bread with a loveable group of eccentrics living In their own, self-made universe, “Whitney” is very clearly about the titular character and her alone. Her snide, loud, observations are peppered throughout as truth, and even when she is embarrassed, with another sarcastic remark she lets it slide right off of her. Cummings is willing to put her character in uncomfortable situations, but she has some hangups about her own vanity that always gives the show’s Whitney Cummings the last laugh. What made a sitcom like “Seinfeld” great is that the four leads constantly overestimated their own intellect, putting themselves in the position to be laughed at. Granted, this wasn’t all implicit in the pilot, but at least the jokes were funny.

But the biggest problem with “Whitney” hands down is the acting. Every performance, from Cummings herself to “Malcolm in the Middle” vet Jane Kaczmarek (who must be jealous of her old sitcom husband Bryan Cranston, who’s experiencing an amazing renaissance) needs to work at about half the volume and twice the speed. There are about twelve jokes too few in the script, and the whole enterprise is straining mightily by the end. There is never a sense that these two characters are in any sort of relationship, and the attempt at emotional earnestness falls totally flat.

Anyone living in a major metropolitan area knows just how terrible “Whitney” would be. Turns out, it doesn’t disappoint – unless you’re a fan of good TV.