Inexplicable TV Review: Mom, surprisingly the best network sitcom!

Warning: Spoilers follow for the current and past seasons of Mom.

It remains a mystery to me how Mom continues to be a splendid show, considering that it’s on CBS and created by Chuck Lorre. However, there are now three seasons of evidence that the show isn’t a fluke, and that it’ll maintain its quality going forward. The show’s weird mixture of comedy and drama is just about perfect, as opposed to heavy-handed.

The strong foundation of the show is obviously the lead performances by Anna Faris and Allison Janney as recovering addicts Christy (daughter) and Bonnie (mother) Plunkett. Unlikely a conventional sitcom though, they fail regularly. In the show’s three seasons, they both relapse, and there aren’t many Convenient Magical Plot Solutions that solve things for them.

The third season actually ends on a bit of a high note, as Christy wins a scholarship to help pay for her college costs, and Bonnie managed to contribute to that fund as well by serving as a middle(wo)man to unload a bunch of junk goods from a friend. However, the show basically had to, since previous episodes featured the overdose death of an AA member Christy was sponsoring, and the dissolution of the engagement of Violet – Christy’s daughter and Bonnie’s granddaughter.

As I’m typing out some of the plot points of Mom, yes, I realize it sounds horribly maudlin. But all of the somberness is well-balanced with humor, thanks to Faris and Janney. Faris was typecast as the ditzy blonde gal in most of her early roles, but she shows some range of emotion and good timing in Mom. As far as Janney goes, hell, she’s got seven Emmy wins, included two for Mom already and four thanks to The West Wing. She’s ridiculously talented in this show.

Of the supporting cast, Sadie Calvano (Violet) is a strong performer, although her role has been downgraded from regular to recurring as she’s now in college (the actor, not her character). With the three generations of the Plunkett women, you get a look at how the substance abuse persists via social and biological means. Jaime Pressly (with a bad haircut) is the most well-known of the other regulars, but they’re all solid character actors.

I’m not alone in my embracing of Mom, as the A.V. Club has also given it some strong reviews. If you can look past the fact that it does have Chuck Lorre’s name and hence stink on it, it’s probably the best half-hour sitcom on television right now. (By the way, RIP The Grinder. SIGH. At least Mom has already been renewed for a new season.)

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TV Review: The Grinder, the best legal show ever

Dean (Rob Lowe) with frenemy Timothy  Olyphant (Timothy Olyphant).

 In the past, I’ve heaped praise on Lookwell, the brilliant pilot by Conan O’Brien and Robert Smigel that only got one episode in 1991. It starred Adam West as a wash-up actor who had played a detective on television, who now believed he had the skills to be an actual detective, with the help of his acting class. Spoiler: He did not have the skills, and hilarity ensued. (The full episode is available here on YouTube.)

It took 24 years, but a network has finally decided to run back that concept. The Grinder stars Rob Lowe as a successful actor, Dean Sanderson, finishing up his stint on an over-hyped, super sexualized show called… The Grinder. The show-within-a-show is awesome, and basically an over-the-top parody of things like CSI: Miami and NCIS. Each episode of The Grinder starts with a 30-second snippet of Dean’s acting, and the ridiculous situations of the show.

The actual show itself has Dean struggling to assimilate back to “real life,” with the main dynamic being the strained relationship between him and his brother, Stewart, played by Fred Savage. Stewart and his wife, The Waitress from Always Sunny (Mary Elizabeth Ellis), are seemingly the only ones not star-struck by Dean. Stewart is routinely exasperated by Dean attempting to practice law without a law degree, even more so when he manages to succeed (or at least, to succeed in his delusional mind).

Beyond the brothers, the main thing The Grinder has going for it is a deep and excellent ensemble cast. Dean and Stu’s dad, Dean Sr. (played by William Devane), is one of the standouts, as the small town lawyer partner of the firm they both work for. Natalie Morales from Parks and Recreation is another lawyer at the firm, who is annoyed and unimpressed by Dean. And Todd (Steve Little) gets laughs as being completely in the bag for everything Dean does. Even Stu’s kids are played by sharp, funny actors (Hana Hayes and Connor Halopsis) and have unique aspects, as opposed to being cloying and stereotypical.

The casting excellence extends to the guest stars. The show is only in its first season, but already, Maya Rudolph and Christina Applegate have stolen episodes as the therapist for the brothers and a single mother interested in Dean, respectively. Timothy Olyphant plays Timothy Olyphant on the show, a former friend of Dean who stabs him in the back by starring in The Grinder's New Orleans spin-off. 

Applegate and Lowe had my favorite meta exchange of the show, which can be seen here on YouTube. “You look exactly the same.” “So do you! Almost in a scary way, exactly the same.” (The other great meta moment: The latest episode is a flashback one to the early 1990s, with Jenna Fischer as Dean’s former girlfriend, and Dean complaining about how women get all of the great roles in Hollywood.)

If you’re looking for a satisfying, 23-minute weekly sitcom, then The Grinder is what you need to check out, especially since Modern Family has fallen off a cliff into a deep ravine, never to return to quality. As a result, The Grinder is my favorite network sitcom by far, edging out Mom, which is more of a mixture of comedy and drama.