This week provided a below average episode from the most obviously mediocre sitcom currently on television. Honestly, I’m really not hard to please when it comes to comedy – all I need is something that’ll make me laugh (anything beyond that comes as extra). At this point, though, it’s definitely not 100% guaranteed that any given episode of Better with You will actually succeeding in bringing about laughter (that it’ll raise a smile is still usually probable). Whilst I still sort of enjoyed this week’s offering, it failed at the only thing that I really expect from comedic television, and for that reason I ended up rather disappointed with this week’s Better with You.
Above all, the main storyline of the episode felt more than unnecessary, and was just poor comic material. In short, Maddie and Vicky wrongly interpret a conversation with Mia as a challenge and subsequently start fighting over guardianship of her baby. (Mia also wrongly interprets what they were talking about… as some sort of judgement of her potential ability as a parent.) When everything in an episode feels this meaningless, it’s just destined not to be funny.
The dialogue of Better with You is often quite weak, but last night it was all just really predictable too. (Particularly Casey’s recurring line [‘Is that a challenge?’] which was just too similar to the superior Neil Patrick Harris”Challenge accepted!’from How I Met Your Mother.) Dialogue aside, many of the jokes were just so obvious that I could see coming from miles away and as a result I’m pretty sure I didn’t even laugh once.
That’s not to say the episode failed at being mildly entertaining, there was at least some good moments (usually from the reliable Ben and Maddie). The biggest success of the episode was probably the little scenes that showed each character getting a different impression from the same conversation (the show calls them the ‘What [insert character name here] Heard’scenes). I liked the idea that they all misinterpreted what was being said and I felt the actors all played it relatively well.
Really though, I’m only still watching this show because I’m hopeful that it might make me laugh occasionally and provide some semblance of entertaining comedy. At this stage, I find it hard to care about any of the characters and am finding it all painfully average. The side plot that centered around Vicky and Joel adopting Mia and Casey’s stray cat might have featured the most engaging character of the episode (yes, I do mean the cat) and towards the end of the episode I was only really caring about the one stray cat that needed CPR and the other cat that was left outside the front door in a paper bag. In truth, that probably sums up quite accurately how I feel about this unremarkable sitcom at the moment.
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