`I am so bad” is the line that characters keep repeating in Thursday’s first episode of the new Fox series “The Crew.”
Memo to television producers: This is the TV critic’s version of the 3-0 fastball, right down the middle. If you build a show around such a phrase, you are either foolhardy or stunningly confident.
In the case of “The Crew,” it’s the former. For in that thrice-spoken line, meant to inform the audience that one fun-loving flight attendant has just set another up for embarrassment, is a capsule review of the show and all you really need to know about it.
But we will press on, because it is the first new show of the new season from a major network, and because a codicil in your rich uncle’s will just may have specified that for you to receive your inheritance, your TV absolutely has to be on WFLD-Ch. 32 between 7:30 and 8 p.m. Thursdays.
The Crew in question is four flight attendants–a gay man, a straight man, and two straight women–who live and attempt to find love in Miami. They chit-chat at the airport and at an apartment, in a local boite and in an airplane cabin big enough to mount “Oklahoma” from.
Members of the mostly unfamiliar cast don’t distinguish themselves–not even Rose Jackson, whom Fox is touting as a star-to-be–but it’s not necessarily their fault.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about “The Crew” is that Fox knew it was so bad, and couldn’t make it any better than it is. In the major retooling between the pilot and Thursday’s premiere, the costumes, sets and dialogue grew less tacky, and Jackson was spared having to parade in brassiere before the first ad break.
But the jokes are still as obvious as a 747 in a cornfield. The show kicks off with a cranky passenger insisting the stews stow his bag for him, and Jackson–get this!–throws it out the door. There’s one about airline food, too (“Is it steak, chicken or fish?” “Yes”). Sure to follow: barf bags, in-flight magazines, and related topics from a vein that standup comics strip mined long ago.
The other joke that’s beaten into the ground consists of variations on the “Hey, he’s gay” theme. David Burke, who played the gay nanny on “Party of Five” last season, isn’t swishy or otherwise stereotypical in his portrayal. But some of the jokes–about his fondness, as a child, for cooking and for coordinating fashion accessories–are. And the show’s constant finger pointing at his sexual orientation makes what ought to be a matter of fact seem freaky.
When the episode suddenly tries to milk his sexuality for pathos–Burke’s father, we learn, smashed his E-Z Bake Oven to pieces–it’s like seeing ballet steps in the middle of a striptease act.
Although the premiere’s material has no more flow to it than cold jelly, a romance for Jackson is introduced that may help future episodes move from a collection of unrelated moments and bad jokes to a collection of related moments and bad jokes.
But the producers–who brought you “The Five Mrs. Buchanans” last season–had better move fast. This flight crew could be grounded in a matter of weeks.
– Double vision: With the photos above, we introduce a new, semi-interactive feature to the television column. It’s called TV Twins, and it works like this: If you look a whole heckuva lot like somebody who appears regularly on the tube, send in a photo and an explanatory note to TV Twins, c/o Steve Johnson, Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan, Chicago, Ill., 60611. (Sorry, but photos cannot be returned.)
If I agree with you–and I have appointed myself judge and jury–we’ll run your picture with that of your doppelganger. Winners will also get a TV publicity trinket from the pile that accumulates in this office.
Our first lookalike is Al Lipkin, 43, of Arlington Heights, a virtual replicant of Jeffrey Tambor, 51, better known as Hank Kingsley on HBO’s “The Larry Sanders Show.”
An office manager at an interior design firm, Lipkin first learned of the resemblance when Tambor had a recurring role as a judge on “Hill Street Blues.” Now that “Sanders” is popular, Lipkin gets the I-know-I’ve-seen-you look–raised finger, scrunched-up eyes, half smile–from strangers almost every day.
“I find it amusing,” he says, vowing not to shave the mustache.
His prize: A night light plugging “Dream On,” HBO’s sister show to “Sanders.” Isn’t this fun?
– An underwater exploration vehicle by any other name. . .: For those scoring at home, NBC has changed the name of the oceanic drama “seaQuest DSV” (for deep sea vehicle) to “seaQuest 2032” (for the year in which it takes place). In a related development, submarine sandwiches will henceforth officially be known as “hoagies,” even in the Midwest.
