The last thing I’d have imagined comparing Up All Night to is thirtysomething. But thirtysomething is what popped into my head as I watched the second episode of the new Christina Applegate/Will Arnett comedy about new, confused, yuppie parents.
Way back in what seems like the Stone Ages, new parents Michael and Hope Steadman were kept up late by their neighbors’ raucous party, when all they wanted to do was catch some shut-eye before their daughter woke them up in the middle of the night. As they sat there, annoyed by the volume of the music and jealous of the fun the people were having across the street, they mourned the loss of their once free-spirited life together, before things like careers and babies got in the way.
Upset that he and his wife had no alone time together without the baby anymore, and set off by the fact that the people at the party were having fun and he wasn’t, Michael raced downstairs, wearing just his boxers, and shrieked in the direction of the house demanding that they turn down the music. It was fruitless, as the partiers just shouted back at him, urging him to chill out.
But since Up All Night is a comedy and not a late 1980s/early 1990s melodrama, Reagan and Chris didn’t handle their irritation about a loud party the way Michael Steadman did. Sure, they actually did call the police to complain about the noise (Michael didn’t) — it was midnight on a weekday and they could hear the music emanating from their new, hipster neighbors’ house while they were sitting in their own living room, unable to get their baby to sleep — and Chris foolishly gave the cops his name.
Fearing that they’d be forever labeled as lame by their uber-cool, dressed-all-in-black new neighbors, they called one of Reagan’s colleagues (who happened to be available at midnight?!) and had him watch their baby while they went across the street to pretend as though they’d been at the party the whole time, hoping no one would learn that they were the ones who dimed their neighbors out.
This was a twist that I did not expect, and one which amused me because Applegate and Arnett delivered the material flawlessly and believably. Chris, in his “ironic” Huey Lewis and the News T-shirt, was outed as the cop caller by his too tight “pre-baby” jeans, which held his cell phone (with its “Hey Soul Sister” ringtone) so snugly to his body that he couldn’t get it out of his pants in time to silence it before everyone discovered that he was the one who’d complained.
What a departure from Michael Steadman shouting ragefully from his front stoop, unconcerned that the party-throwers would call him lame. What a difference twenty years make when it comes to how well educated, professional thirty-something new parents deal with a loud party that’s keeping their baby — and them — up all night. Nowadays, many parents of Chris and Reagan’s ilk are desperate to be perceived as hip, whereas previous generations didn’t put such a premium on that once they had kids. And Up All Night made this point without having to resort to using a sledgehammer.
The ancillary story about Maya Rudolph‘s Ava being jealous that baby Amy seemed to love everyone but her was just okay. It felt been-there, done-that. It’s lazy writing to depict the childless professional woman as a clueless cold fish who looks at babies like they’re alien creatures and has no idea what to do when they’re in an infant’s presence. (However I must admit to smirking when Ava insisted that buying Amy a “traditional” wallet would be her ticket into getting into the baby’s good graces.)
But, as with the pilot episode, the writers concluded this episode by warming up Ava’s narcissistic wackiness by giving her a moment, albeit a short one, to bond with the baby in her dressing room. It would be fabulous if Ava could be developed into more than just a one-dimensional demanding boss with an occasional glimmer of humanity.
Clacked by Meredith O'Brien 
on Sep 22, 2011 @ 12:52 EST5EDT
