Counting Down
I hate Leap of Faith.
Sorry for revealing so much up front, but the creators of
the latest timeslot-after-Friends disaster don't
feel compelled to leave anything to the imagination, so the
rest of us might as well oblige. It must have seemed like a
good idea at the time: Friends, which is about six
single (or formerly single) people living in New York City,
has been the most watched sitcom on television since the
end of Seinfeld, which was about four single people
living in NYC. What's more, Sex and the City, about
four women in various stages of love, sex, and marriage in
NYC, is the most watched comedy on cable, as well as a
multiple Emmy winner. So, why not give Jenny Bicks, a
writer-producer of that program, her own sitcom within the
networky confines of NBC, and give her a choice timeslot?
Let me count the ways.
1. The Premise
Wherein Faith Wardwell (charisma-free Sarah Paulson, last
seen not making a mark in the WB's Jack & Jill)
leaves her fiancé, David (Bradley White), at the altar for
Dan (Brad Rowe), a young beefcake actor who auditions for a
commercial in the ad agency where Faith works. It's about
sex, see. But it's only about sex because her near-marriage
wasn't about love, see. That's what the whole series is
about, sex and love, see. Forget that the ol'
leave-the-fiancé-at-the-altar routine is the oldest trick
in the sitcom book (Rachel did it on Friends, Susan
did it on Suddenly Susan, Diane did it a couple of
times on Cheers). What Faith's "leap" sets up is
simply another shallow look at shallow people finding
shallow companionship in a city that's much deeper than all
these clichés make it out to be.
Sex and the City suffered from similar problems
during its first two seasons -- namely, the women talked as
if they were writing each other emails and didn't want to
leave anything out, lest we misunderstand them. The result
was an exhausting parade of stereotypes in designer shoes
and punch lines begging for a laugh track that wasn't
there. It makes you wonder if Bicks was responsible for all
those lifeless episodes and that Sex and the City's
improvement is a direct result of her departure.
2. The Characters
This hypothesis would explain the similar banalities in
Leap of Faith and the early days of Sex and the
City. There's Faith, the aforementioned lead character
and fiancé-dumper. She's the Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker's
character on that other series) of Leap of Faith, a
woman who's going through an early-adulthood crisis of
conscience because she feels she hasn't done it with enough
guys. Her friend and co-worker Patty (Lisa Edelstein) is
the female id (Kim Katrall's Samantha on the other series),
always ready to hop on Faith's shoulder and whisper --
rather, scream -- in her ear that, hey, men have been
getting away with it ("it" being a laundry list of
promiscuous behavior) for years, so why can't women?
Her other friend, Cynthia (Regina King), seems to be
nothing more than a cynical cheerleader (somewhere between
prim Charlotte and high-strung Miranda from Sex and the
City) and you-go-girlfriend stereotype of a black
woman. Andy (Ken Marino, whose hilarious turn in last
year's Wet Hot American Summer let him say much more
about sex in limited screen time than he's allowed to do
with much more time here) is a sensitive straight-guy
hipster who lives downtown and prefers vintage t-shirts to
Brooks Brothers suits. He also seems to be half-stereotyped
and half-missing, as his main occupation seems to be
getting advice on dating from the other main characters.
In other words, he's a pussy -- a word you'll never hear on
the series, but we'll get to that later -- whose
solicitations would better suit him as a woman. In fact,
his personality is so indiscernible from those of his
female friends that you get the impression he was
originally intended as a woman and changed to a man for the
sake of demographic diversity. Likewise, the supporting
cast of Faith's high-society mom (Jill Clayburgh), acerbic
boss (Tim Meadows, who has got to be worthy of more
than this lame role and his lamer one in the canceled
Michael Richards Show) and erstwhile romper room pal
(Rowe) are perhaps fine for demographics, but awful
characters.
3. The Storylines
The battle of the sexes is well-worn territory, and Leap
of Faith shows no interest in exploring. In one
episode, Faith and Patty are told to come up with a female
perspective on golf clubs. See, it's funny because women
hate golf -- hate it. Meanwhile, Faith takes her
bed-buddy relationship to the next level by inviting Dan to
the Ice Capades with her, then runs into David and his date
at the driving range five days after skipping out on the
marriage. It's at that range that Patty learns about golf's
"sweet spot" (neither the first nor the last of the sexual
innuendos) and -- surprise! -- becomes a golf fanatic. Add
to that Cynthia's love-hate relationship with Faith's
wedding dress-worshipping mom and Andy's date with an
uptown girl, and you've got more zaniness than a pack of
Twizzlers. Fortunately, everyone on the show seems able to
talk without taking breaths, so the ridiculously wordy
script manages to fit inside the sitcom's allotted 22
minutes.
4. The Network
But none of those words will be too risqué because, much to
the chagrin of Jeff Zucker (the programming head at NBC who
famously whined last year about how the networks couldn't
keep up with HBO's quality programming because they
couldn't say dirty words or show private parts), it's still
network television. When Patty presents her artistic
concept for the golf club campaign, what she's come up with
is a red and black spiral that's painted with wavy lines
and vivid colors. She says it's the visual representation
of the "sweet spot," and the male suits stare at it in
bewilderment. If it were Sex and the City, or any
HBO series for that matter, Patty could then yell, "It's a
PUSSY, gentlemen!" thus completing the gag and clearing
things up for the denser viewers. Alas, she can't do that,
and you realize in one fell swoop that a character like
Patty and a show like Leap of Faith need to be able
to complete their thoughts, no matter how dirty, if we're
to buy into it.
5. The Guilt
Being an M-rated series trapped in a TV-14 timeslot isn't
the only reason for not tuning in to Leap of Faith.
Yet, what bothers me most about the series is that it makes
me feel like a sexist. I watch Leap of Faith and
think that the women on it are shallow, boring, unfunny,
and stupid. And I know that, if these characters could talk
back to me, at least two and probably all of them -- Andy
included -- would deem me too traditional to understand
their cool lifestyles and modern problems. Do I really not
understand them, or are they so ridiculously self-centered
that only one subsection of one clique in one city (or
maybe two -- we shouldn't leave out all the banal ironists
who inhabit L.A.) really has such uninteresting problems?
Sex and the City was initially overrated because it
dared to take sex from a woman's perspective seriously,
despite painting its lead characters with broad, clichéd
strokes. Now that it's gotten past that, it truly is one of
the best and most consistent series on television, as well
as a groundbreaking program that doesn't write off women as
hapless patsies or lovable sluts. Leap of Faith,
however, revels in its stereotypes and does for the women's
perspective what, say, Inside Schwartz or Men
Behaving Badly did for the men's perspective. Those
shows got canceled, and hopefully this one isn't far
behind.
MORE TV 