CBS
I don’t know what my deal is so far this TV season, but I have already fallen severely behind. I managed to catch all of the Thursday shows, but I missed the premiere of House, the first half-hour of Heroes, and the debut of Fringe. The fall season is coming up on me so quickly, that Do Not Disturb was canceled before I even got a chance to see it.
This past week was a little better, but the heavily promoted new CBS comedy Worst Week managed to get by me. Luckily, it’s available on my Comcast On Demand, so I was able to catch up on the first two episodes. Okay, I said “luckily,” because it seemed like a good idea at the time, but that was before I actually watched the show and discovered what a steaming pile of crap it is.
Worst Week, despite being based on a BBC series called Worst Week of My Life, is basically a watered-down, more ridiculous version of the Ben Stiller movie, Meet the Parents. In Week, Sam (Kyle Bornheimer) and his fiancee Melanie (Erinn Hayes) spend a week with her parents in which they prepare to announce that they’re not only engaged, but Melanie is pregnant.
What follows is 22 painful minutes of Sam trying (and predictably failing) to ingratiate himself to his future in-laws. In the pilot, through a painfully unfortunate and unrealistic chain of events, Sam shows up late… and naked, pees in food, and ruins a priceless gift. In the second episode, he murders two pet birds, uses a breast pump and, mistaking him for a burglar, assaults his fiancee’s brother.
All I could think about as I was watching this was, “WTF, Worst Week?”. I’m not a sitcom snob. Yes, I love Arrested Development and 30 Rock, but I’ve also seen every episode of The Big Bang Theory. Worst Week is just painfully unfunny. I’m fine with unrealistic situations, but not when they’re passed off as logical.
We’re supposed to believe that it’s logical to put a bird in your pants pocket and then smash it to death when it starts moving around. What’s more, is we are supposed to further believe that Sam’s ostensibly normal fiancee, Melanie, doesn’t think that the fact that Sam murdered her father’s prized pet is the least bit strange or horrifying. The fact that we’re not only supposed to swallow this, but also think it’s funny, is just insulting. This sort of lowest common denominator comedy may have flown five years ago, but today’s audience expects more. Not only that, but we deserve more. My guess is that Worst Week will be sharing Do Not Disturb‘s fate sooner, rather than later.
Clacked by Kona Gallagher 
on Oct 06, 2008 @ 17:34 EST5EDT
I completely agree. After 2 episodes it has been removed from my DVR schedule.
I absolutely agree. I stomached the first fifteen minutes of the pilot and then fast-forwarded to the “juicy” scenes of “slipping in pee” and “going out pee-drenched”.
The problem might be that on the right channel this crap would fly. There is definitively an audience for this. Let’s just hope they don’t find it until it gets cancelled.
TOTALLY disagree. Worst Week’s premiere is the first show that caused me to laugh out loud since Larry David and pals opened the restaurant with the open kitchen.
I loved the first season of the original BBC series with Ben Miller and Sarah Alexander (B.M. & S.A. are only two reasons why I prefer the UK version); the second season and the christmas special were still somewhat funny but not on par with the first season.
The writing and acting is way better in the UK version and there are only 7 episodes per season (three for the christmas special), one episode for each day of the week(/holidays).
That said…I couldn’t even stomach the whole first episode of the US version, it was THAT bad. I can’t even begin to imagine how the US writers will stretch the ‘worst week’ over 22-24 episodes…I tried to watch the second episode but couldn’t get through it.
I think I’ll pop my ‘Worst Week UK’ DVDs in the player next weekend, it’s just more fun…
I disagree – it’s a light sitcom and you know it will be much the same thing each week. That doesn’t make it bad.
It’s fun, performances are solid and there’ve been several laugh-out-loud moments for me.
Great review, I agree with everything. I’m so shocked to read people actually likes this. I hated Meet The Parents and this show is even worse.
I couldn’t finish the pilot and I’ll watch almost anything.
*POST AUTHOR*
That was what bugged me so much about it. I also watch a good amount of crap (I’m recapping 90210 and Top Model, for Pete’s sake)and even given that, Worst Week was horrible.