I’m rather confused after watching the first episode of FOX’s new comedy Raising Hope. I actually made three or four “heh” noises, which is unusual for me, considering the state of most sit-coms. But at times, I felt my eyes roll. And once, my stomach definitely rolled.
If you missed it, Raising Hope revolves around main character Jimmy (Lucas Neff), who meets a serial killer when she carjacks him, and gets her pregnant. Uh huh. So far, very plausible. The femme fatale gets the chair, and Jimmy gets the baby.
Enter dysfunctional family, headed up by sarcastic smoker Mom (Martha Plimpton). Cloris Leachman plays Maw Maw, the Great Grandmother who has sporatic dementia. There’s a cousin who drifts in and out, and a dim-witted father as well (Garrett Dillahunt).
What follows is a lot of mayhem and shenanigans, as the house is disrupted by the baby, who is temporarily named Princess Beyonce. I’ll spare you a rundown. Mayhem and shenanigans basically covered it. But here are a few thoughts I had about the show:
1.) The writing was uneven. Just when I got a bit excited at some creativity, a dick reference, dirty diaper joke, or barf scene came along.
2.) Speaking of the barf scene. Totally unnecessary. Very life-like. But totally unnecessary.
3.) I like Martha Plimpton’s character. However, she was sooo against having the baby in the house, that her complete turnaround in the last two minutes wasn’t believable. My evil side would have liked to see “her against the baby” for a couple more episodes.
4.) Cloris Leachman. I love her and want to see more. She’s a great character actress. Relying on the sight gag of an 80-some year old woman sitting around in her bra for every scene in which she appears, is a waste.
5.) Did anyone else notice that the baby changed radically mid way through? As in Different Baby Actor? Writers — see Full House to keep this from happening again.
In a nutshell, I’ll check out Raising Hope again. Some of it had a snarky edge that I enjoyed. But most of those moments revolved around Martha Plimpton not wanting Hope around. Now that it looks like Hope is there to stay, I “hope” these moments don’t get lost.
What did you think?
Clacked by Tara Shrodes
on Sep 22, 2010 @ 10:00 EST5EDT
I’ll have to check it out, thanks for the heads up :)
i watched it because i always liked martha plimpton but that barf scene just grossed me out. I was thinking that I would not be watching again, but then the last segment..where they came in and sang to the baby and things calmed down a bit gave me Hope for the show!
I like Martha Plimpton too Toni, and she’s definitely the core of the show. But if I never see her barf again in my lifetime, it’ll be too soon.
Wow…. how did I miss Cloris Leachman? Loved the show but didnt even recognize her lol.
Maybe you were distracted by her big ole Granny bra Mike! ;)
I found these show actually really funny… maybe there’s something wrong with me… :)
I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with you Natty. I liked parts of it too. We shall see …