somethingreal81

Esmeralda isn't the only problem with this show--I'd even say her character gradually improves as the season goes along. The bigger problem is that aside from Ned, Mare, and Esmeralda, the characters are completely ill-defined and completely unfunny. I know The Office wasn't perfect at the start, but Pam and Jim's chemistry was instantly undeniable. The Paper clearly wants us to be similarly invested in Detrick and Nicole but the two actors have ZERO chemistry and Detrick comes off as pathetic at best and stalker-y at worst. Barry is also clearly meant to be a Stanley-type curmudgeon, but Stanley was actually funny. I never even cracked a smile at Barry.

I was a big fan of Gilmore Girls and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, so naturally I was excited for this show. Unfortunately, it feels like a rare (though not completely unprecedented *cough* Jezebel James *cough*) misfire from Amy Sherman-Palladino. First, the writing is just not funny and the characters aren't likable. The premiere also spends a full hour setting up the premise and establishing the characters, neither of which requires this much set-up and, as a result, makes the whole thing drag. (Literally, the entirety of the pilot could have been summed up by having one character say "We decided to trade dancers between Paris and New York. It's helped generate lots of publicity, but we didn't expect Cheyenne to be such a handful.) Subsequent episodes pick up a bit plot-wise, but I still found myself ambivalent to what was happening on screen and finally gave up midway through the fourth episode.

The first episode of Happiness was fantastic--smart, funny, and full of great musical numbers. Unfortunately, every episode since then has been a huge disappointment. None of the humour or spark of that first episode is anywhere to be found in the subsequent episodes and the plot is absolutely non-existent. I mistakenly watched the fourth episode before episodes two and three and didn't even realize because so little of importance happened in those two episodes (which, yes, I did go back and watch). I'm also not clear on why this show is called Happiness other than it's another word for Glee? Sadly, the lack of originality in the title is emblematic of the rest of the show.