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 n my last year of college, I lived downstairs from a cute, funny guy who had already graduated. I wouldn't say we were soulmates, but considering my track record of dating ex-boyfriends and losers smelling of bong water, he was a mighty good match: He was president of his consulting firm, volunteered at the vet clinic and loved Sandra Bernhard. I could've done without the last part, but still. On our first date, he proposed marriage, and we pawed each other in a ripped-up leather booth while old drunks stared and drained their whiskeys. I didn't think we'd wind up together, exactly, but I did think we'd have more than one good date. A week later, we sat across from each other at a bar with the kind of joyless stupor usually reserved for couples celebrating their thirty-sixth wedding anniversary. What had happened? How had something so promising turned bad so fast?
Chemistry is a fickle mistress. Even given all the proper elements — sense of humor, deep brown eyes, ability to hold one's liquor — romance is never a sure bet. And so it is for Lovespring International. Despite a talented cast and a good premise, the show just doesn't click. Chemistry is tricky to pin down, but comedy is just a bitch.
A new offering from Lifetime, Lovespring International is like the underachieving child of BBC's The Office and a Christopher Guest mockumentary. It's a largely improvised comedy that takes place at a dating service in a time when internet sites have all but snuffed out traditional in-person services like those offered by Lovespring. "Maybe I should just go to Perfectmatch.com," threatens one disgruntled client. (Match.com is the show's sole sponsor.) It's in this last-gasp atmosphere of romantic and financial desperation that our protagonists toil every day. Not to mention they're in the San Fernando Valley.
To make matters worse, these employees can't even salvage their own love lives. Vice president Lydia Mayhew (Wendi McLendon-Covey) has been dating a married man for twenty years. Her colleague, Burke Christopher (Sam Pancake), is gay and closeted in a sham marriage. Psychologist Steve Morris (Jack Plotnick) is on parole after taking a hands-on approach to female clients. Their boss, Victoria Ratchford (Jane Lynch), is too busy on spiritual journeys in
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The ramshackle plotlines and lack of focus almost make me long for the days of the paint-by-numbers sitcom.
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New Mexico to give her employees much guidance. Like their lonely-heart clients, these characters are searching for love and comfort — and failing at both.
The cast was clearly chosen for their comic chops: Plotnick and McLendon-Covey come from Reno 911!, Pancake was a regular on Arrested Development, and Lynch is well-known for her role in Best in Show. My favorite character is gum-smacking, hair-twirling Tiffany, played by Jennifer Elise Cox (Jan from The Brady Bunch Movie). She has the orange tan and thinly veiled indifference of bored receptionists everywhere. But the whole cast has strong comic timing, and their everyday bickering is amusing. "We used to work as a team," Lydia complains to Burke, who replies, "Yes, that was when I was training you." But the ramshackle plotlines and lack of focus almost make me long for the days of the paint-by-numbers sitcom. I understand the lure of the improvised comedy: minimal camerawork and no lousy scriptwriters lurking by the craft-services table. But if you're not careful, it becomes more fun for the actors than it is for the audience (Mighty Wind, anyone?).
Part of the problem with Lovespring is that it attempts to mix the nuance of the mockumentary with the over-the-top storylines of Seinfeld and Arrested Development. In one episode, a character gets torn apart by golden retrievers. It must be tempting to throw out insane twists just to see how the actors handle them — and then you get drunk and pass out on the job! (episode one) — but it compromises the show's believability and its characters' resonance. The Office (both American and British versions) and Guest films like Waiting for Guffman work because, despite
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Maybe to Lifetime's audience, killer dogs seem more slice-of-life.
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their outrageousness, you really believe those characters exist somewhere. The actors in Lovespring International may be holding up their end, but they're poorly served by plot points ripped from the headlines of Weekly World News. Then again, this is a show developed for Lifetime, whose audience has been weaned on a seemingly endless spate of two-star movies about tragedy, excessive drug use and men who murder their wives. Maybe in this context, killer dogs seem more slice-of-life.
To be fair, Lovespring International is funnier than most network comedies (which, if you've seen Two and a Half Men, isn't saying much.) The show has tested so well that Lifetime has already ordered seven more episodes. The creators have wrangled cameos from NewsRadio's Dave Foley and producer Eric McCormack's W&G costar, Sean Hayes.
Still, I couldn't find the spark. I wanted to like Lovespring International so much that I even watched it twice, hoping I'd find the attraction I'd missed the first time around. Maybe I'm expecting too much from my comedies. Maybe I have unrealistic expectations. But comedy, like love, is something you feel in the gut. And my gut was telling me this romance was a bust. n°
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR: |
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Sarah Hepola is a freelance writer living in New York City. |
©2006 Sarah Hepola and hooksexup.com.
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