'Not Going Out' a sweet sitcom import
"Not Going Out" is a situation comedy about how the British use humor to cover up their emotions, but the jokes -- what jokes there are -- do a poor job of hiding things. They're better off sticking with the stiff upper lip.
That might be bad for the comedy -- no matter how much the insistent laugh track suggests it's hilarious -- but it's not debilitating where the show as a whole is concerned. "Not Going Out" might come off as unfunny when it debuts at 7:40 p.m. Tuesday on BBC America, but it has a sweetness to it, as well as an interesting dynamic involving both Brits and Yanks and the Brits themselves.
The show has a setup as simple and streamlined as a U.S. sitcom. That's one of its charms, that it takes a U.S. format, Anglicizes it with quirky little grace notes and sells it back to us. In fact, "Not Going Out" has the feel of a British show destined to be Americanized, like the successful "The Office" or the flop "Coupling."
Lee Mack and Tim Vine, previously best known for "The Sketch Show," play a couple of British blokes, best mates and drinking buddies. Their relationship is complicated, however, in that Tim has just broken up with his girlfriend after he couldn't resist a fling with a younger lover, while Lee has just moved in with the jilted ex -- purely as a roommate, not a boyfriend.
When he greets her as "landlady," she calls him "rent boy."
That's because she's a sharp-tongued, serious, determinedly healthy Yank, while he's a bit of a beer-swilling, rasher-munching British slacker. Now, the old romantic tease has pretty much played itself out on these shores, from "Cheers" to "Friends" to the recently canceled "Back to You." Yet Mack and Megan Dodds, who plays the transplanted American Kate, manage to make it seem fresh, mainly because they both underplay their mutual attraction, and because they've both been around the block a few times.
Dodds' Kate has sharp, chiseled features -- cheekbones you could crack walnuts on -- while Mack's Lee has a doofy Peter Sellers quality about him. The U.S. version would no doubt shave at least 10 years off their ages and make them young-adult twentysomethings designed to appeal to that advertising demographic, but it works to make them a little more experienced and wary of involvement. It also helps that Dodds escapes the dumb-blonde Southern California stereotype to play the super-serious and hyper-sincere Yank opposite these two British twits, who are perhaps a little too twitty to start.
"You know what they say. No man is an island," opines Tim.
"What about the Isle of Man?" Lee replies. It's a wonder a joke that obvious had to wait until the 21st century to be discovered.
Later, on a blind date with an author acquaintance of Kate's, when she says she resisted using a ghost writer, Lee says, "You mean like Stephen King?" That's not stoopid; it's just plain dumb.
Yet upcoming episodes find the show developing its own sense of humor. When a psychological therapist asks Lee why he always jokes with women, he says, "It's an ice-breaker, isn't it?" And her deadpan reaction shot provides the punch line.
The third show, in two weeks, finds it hitting its stride with a bit of "Frasier"-esque farce, as Lee pretends he's Tim and that he and Kate never broke up in order to impress Kate's competitive, but lovelorn friend visiting from Australia. Which makes it doubly pointed that he has to seem loving and avid when they're trying to hide their own feelings from each other. When he enters in a flannel bathrobe, Kate responds, "Very sexy. Are you looking for Gromit?"
At the same time, the scripts make time to slip in one-liners like "I'm gonna donate my body to science and make my dad happy. He always wanted me to go to medical school," not to mention setting "We Will Rock You" to armpit percussion.
As it goes on, there's also increasing class conflict between Lee and Tim, with references to Lee being "from the north." Lee responds by mimicking the clueless doddering of a "sophisticated" Londoner like Hugh Grant.
All told, this is a disarming comedy, enchanting for its good intentions rather than its laughs. Yet Dodds' Kate will apparently only be around for the six-episode first season. So enjoy it while you can as a lovely spring bloom snipped from a classic British garden.
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