Whitney - Episode 1.01 - Pilot - Review

"Mark emailed me, he went home with the pregnant girl. He says he wants to know if it counts as a threesome." —Alex

According to reviews of the pilot episode of Whitney, not many people liked it. One SpoilerTV commenter said it was a "disgrace to comedy night done right." Others find the laugh track obnoxious and think the male lead should stop smiling after every single one of his jokes. But, if I'm being completely honest: I think Whitney was pretty, darn funny. In fact, I'm a little shocked by the backlash it has received online. Granted, I read the reviews before I actually watched the episode, so it may be that my hopes were quite low.

But I also watched the episode right after Community and Parks and Recreation's season openers, what many would argue to be better quality comedies, and still thought this show held its own. It even made me laugh more — and more consistently — than the other Thursday comedies' (sans The Office, which I don't watch) episodes.

I appreciated how abrasive it was, I liked that it tried desperately to make me laugh (because it succeeded), and I was okay with how loud it is.* Whitney Cummings and her co-star Chris D'Elia (Alex) have great chemistry, which certainly helped. And the supporting cast was good enough, while not exactly present in this episode, with the exception of Rhea Seehorn's Roxanne who was even better. Her stern attitude could have been tiresome but it just made me laugh as soon as she said "Get off my balls." D'Elia smiling after his lines, while may have been a bit irritating, just showed me how much fun he and the rest of the cast was having. (And don't we all smile after we joke in real life anyway?)

*Which is weird, because I've watched Whitney Cummings' standup act once and I very much did not like it. She was way too loud and seemed overly obnoxious. In this sitcom setting, however, it really worked for me. And I saw jokes that didn't work for me in standup make me laugh in this form, specifically the 'dressing up as a nurse and making her boyfriend sign forms' bit.

The least funny thing about this pilot was Jane Kaczmarek, which was disappointing since I was very much looking forward to her. She plays Whitney's, what it seems, somewhat high-maintenance, borderline rude mother. But the problem is the "somewhat" and "borderline" parts of her character. Everyone else is basically a caricature version of themselves, with the exception of D'Elia's Alex — but at least his lines are funny. Kaczmarek, however, did allow Whitney to mutter one of the sweeter moments in the pilot, "But I want to be stuck with him. That's exactly what I want."

The rest of the warm, sweet parts of the pilot, however, were underwhelming and at times awkward. I would advise to steer clear from that and stick to in-your-face jokes. Because when it comes to that, Parks and Rec blows them out of the water.

And that's fine. Because ultimately, I watch a comedy to laugh. And if Whitney continues with the better parts of its pilot going into episode two, I'll continue to watch.

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