TV Review: Benched

Networks have brands, just like floor cleaners or potato chips.  CBS has crime procedurals where people hug at the end (see my blog posts about Scorpion).  Fox has comedies that are so crude that commentators on Fox News complain about them.  USA has programs about attractive people having career crises.

That description of USA programming applies to Royal Pains (attractive doctor with career crisis), Suits (attractive fake and real lawyers having career problems), Burn Notice (attractive spy has career crisis) and White Collar (attractive thief has career crisis).  That format is now being applied to a sitcom about lawyers that is the antithesis of Suits; the lawyers in Benched buy their suits off the rack (Macy’s is probably outside their budget) and they don’t drink 30 year old scotch after settling a multi-million dollar case.

That sort of practice was the career of attorney Nina Whitley (Eliza Coupe) before she melts down at a law office meeting where she is passed over for a promotion (only on television do women as gorgeous as Coupe get to complain about not getting a promotion because she isn't attractive enough), which happened moments after her ex-fiancée told her he was getting married to someone else.  Of course a talented, highly trained lawyer like Nina would have no choice but to go to work for the Public Defender’s office.

Her first day at work does not go well; her clients are not Fortune 500 executives but the scum of the Earth, the assistant DA is her ex-fiancée, and she manages to get herself stuck straddling the swinging door to where the prisoners are held.  But she improbably pulls out a victory at the end, so she won’t quit and look for an even more demeaning job.

I've said before that you can’t judge a pilot by its premise.  In the hands of the right people, the silliest premise can be turned into gold (Lost had probably the stupidest premise of all time and it won a bunch of Emmys).  If Benched can flesh out the characters surrounding Nina, there is comedy potential only hinted at in the first episode.

The fact that the show stars Coupe is a huge plus.  She was the only late-season cast addition to Scrubs that I cared for, and I liked her a lot.  I tried to like her next show, Happy Endings, but I just couldn't.  A lot of people loved the show; maybe I couldn't get past Elisha Cuthbert not in a bear trap.  Coupe is beautiful but not in a cookie-cutter way, and she has comedic timing and a way with physical comedy.

It also helps that her co-star is Jay Harrington, looking much scruffier than he did when he starred on Better Off Ted, one of my favorite sitcoms of this century. I don’t think Harrington and Coupe will be this century’s Sam and Diane, but they have an easy chemistry similar to that which Harrington had with Andrea Anders, his blonde co-star on Ted.

USA has created a nice cottage industry creating shows that rarely get Emmy consideration but last long enough to find syndication. The pilot has too much exposition to carry to have much time for laughs, but with the entirety of the criminal underworld at their disposal there is room for development, and Coupe is a gifted verbal and physical comedienne. Given the dearth of decent sitcoms on television, this potential is something I hope they don’t squander.