Mulaney - Season 1 (1 Viewer)

I sat through all three episodes of Mulaney with my mouth agape because I cannot understand how such a terrible show can make it to air. If you took out some of the dirty bits, this show feels exactly like a Nickeolodeon or Disney Channel live action show -- half the jokes don't really make any sense, the other half aren't funny, and an obnoxious laugh track punctuates every single failed attempt. It really feels like a misguided remake of Seinfeld tailored for Disney XD. And for a show created by a TV writer, it seems to have no idea how a TV show is made. In the latest episode, Mulaney passes off a notebook full of jokes written by a deceased old neighbor as his own. These jokes make their way on to Martin Short's game show, but Mulaney doesn't know any of them until he hears them at the taping instead of in the writers' room. So Mulaney is a staff writer on the show and yet has no idea what's going to go on the cue cards.

I really wanted to like this show because I've enjoyed John Mulaney's stand up and his stint as a writer on SNL (the only few laughs I've gotten off of the show were during his Seinfeldian stand-up interludes) and Nasim Pedrad was always an underrated cast member there. But this show is one of the worst things I've seen in a while. This show is worse than Sullivan and Son, and that was the worst show I watched regularly. Mulaney is easily worse than that. Mulaney is almost as bad as Henry Danger, but that show is meant for kids who haven't yet developed a sense of humor. Mulaney is so bad the only plausible excuse is that it's a satire of bad sitcoms. Except I'm pretty sure it isn't.

The show's 16 episode order was cut back to 13, so unless some miracle happens, this won't make it past that. It's so bad that I will probably watch every episode to marvel at how awful it is. That's the best way to describe Mulaney -- it is marvelously awful.

From what I read TPTB cut the episode order down to 13, and they had just finished filming that 13th episode, so the show is toast.

This is an old article from 2013, but I felt the same way at the time:

http://splitsider.com/2013/05/why-nbc-will-regret-not-picking-up-mulaney/

I'm curious to see the original NBC pilot. I've heard it was much edgier than the FOX version. Part of me wants to believe that FOX forced Mulaney to make ths show shitty and he responded by making the show even shittier than requested.

BTW, there was a whole subplot about the bearded idiot friend being afraid of teenagers bullying him for his trick or treat candies like they had done in the past. So he accepts cold cuts and other groceries instead, which get taken by an apartment full of old teenagers. Not only is it not funny, none of it makes any sense.

Uh, sorry -- spoilers.

I watched the first episode and haven't been able to bring myself to watch another. This show is trying SO HARD to be Seinfeld, and it fails miserably on every level. I feel really bad for Pedrad - I always liked her on SNL. Her character here is just unpleasant. And don't get me started on Martin Short sucking the laughs out of every scene he's in.

There are some talented people on this show. Hopefully Fox cancels it soon so they can all go find something better to do.

Has anyone ever been given a show that he knew would fail so he makes the show as awful as possible so it gets canned, fast and on to the next one? Is that what we have here? Sure seems like it. I don't follow stand up so I never heard of him from that. I never look at the credits on SNL and barely make it to them so never heard of him from that. From what I can tell he is most known for inserting random lines into Bill Hader's Stefan que cards on SNL.

It took 12 episodes (some of which were the worst half hours of scripted TV in the past year), but Mulaney finally put out a very funny episode, funnier than the previous 11 combined (which is, to be sure, not a high bar). Ruby is everything the show should have been from the start -- funny and edgy with absurdist deconstructions of sitcom tropes. Also, more Mulaney and less of the supporting cast, which, unforutnately, never clicked. The scene in the apartment was the first time the gang riffed off of each other well. It's usually really awkward.


http://www.fox.com/watch/395448387969/7685457408


There's only one more episode left. I'm going to remember "Ruby" as the unicorn episode. I doubt number 13 will be anything other than terrible. If it's actually as good as "Ruby", and it just needed time to get its bearings, I'll get a little verklempt at the show that could have been.