"The League" (New FX pilot)

[BillBrasky]

I debated whether this was worth its own thread, but there's enough funny people involved that I guess it is.

FX is joining "The League," ordering a semiscripted comedy pilot from "Curb Your Enthusiasm" executive producer/director Jeff Schaffer.

The project, which Schaffer co-created with his wife, Jackie Marcus Schaffer, centers on a fantasy football league and tackles issues of marriage, friendship, parenting and love in suburbia.

In the words of lead character Pete (Mark Duplass): "God bless fantasy football. There are many things a man can do with his time; this is better than those things."

Schaffer and Marcus Schaffer, for whom fantasy football is a big part of their lives and marriage, are executive producing the pilot, which is shooting. Schaffer is directing.

"League" features improvisational elements in the "Curb" mold.

In addition to Duplass ("Humpday"), the show's cast includes Steve Rannazzisi ("Paul Blart: Mall Cop"), Nick Kroll ("I Love You, Man"), Paul Scheer ("Human Giant"), Katie Aselton ("The Puffy Chair"), Jon Lajoie and Alina Foley, daughter of actor Dave Foley. Leslie Bibb is on board as a guest star.

Schaffer, who also was an executive producer on "Seinfeld," co-wrote current domestic boxoffice champ "Bruno."

FX has been aggressively developing modestly budgeted comedy projects, in part to find a companion piece to "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia."

"League" is one of two half-hour pilots recently commissioned by the cable network, joining the animated comedy "Archer," which was picked up to series this week with a six-episode order and is slated to premiere in the fall.

[Tuohy]

Picked up for six episodes:

http://www.variety.com/article/VR111...goryid=14&cs=1

Kroll's characters have been killing me lately. Can't wait to see a new one on the television.

[thecomicscomic]

Congrats! Knowing how Nick and Paul can create characters and improvise, I am more than cautiously optimistic.

[Aaron1933]

Featuring Space "George Lowe" Ghost.

[Popinjay-Z]

Those promos aren't doing much for me, but that certainly isn't indicative of the final product or even the tone of the series. It's always nice to see Scheer and Kroll, and Duplass (the lead?) is a genuinely charming performer from the Wilson brothers school of likable acting. He and Katie Aselton are among the precious few redeeming things about the truly abhorrent Mumblecore movement.

[jekyllisland]

Do you even know who Jon Lajoie is?

Someone getting about a million hits on average on videos posted to you tube. Show me your genitals easy has 18 million hits.

Take a look this is who is involved with this show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC03h...e=channel_page

old people burning old people burning
thats kinda messed up

[Me!]

Thanks for the info williambrasky

[crimestick]

Thanks for the info jekyllisland

[onelinedrawing]

What did people think of this? I liked it, didn't love it... but in general I never judge something from the first episodes.

Kroll is absolutely the best thing in it so far, he is clearly having a lot of fun.

Would love to hear what people think... does it play better with sporty folks?Some jokes were a bit lost on me.

[jackalope-shepard]

Didn't love it either. I loved Kroll and hope Scheer is more prominent in later episodes. Too early to tell.

[BillBrasky]

The main guy kind of strikes me as like if Eugene Mirman and Ron Livingston had a baby.

The parts with Nick Kroll and Matt Walsh were the funniest parts.

[onelinedrawing]

Yeah Walsh was pretty great, and it was nice to see Huebel pop up for a brief moment.

Has anyone heard anything about a debut date for Players, the new Walsh/Roberts Collab that apparently got picked up by Spike.

[Pimpbot]

I liked it as a comedy fan, although there was a sense that they were trying a little too hard to create laughs and memorable moments. That said, the cast is good and seem comfortable together.

As a sports fan, it took the fantasy sports stereotypes (the pussy whipped guy, too busy guy, clueless guy, lazy guy, etc) a bit too far. It didn't seem too much like they actually liked football or cared about the league in the smaller details. They basically just had each character profess caring or indifference.

As onlinedrawing said, no need to judge by a show only by its pilot. I'll keep watching for sure.

[DJ Sam]

Has anyone heard anything about a debut date for Players, the new Walsh/Roberts Collab that apparently got picked up by Spike.

Ian told me it should be coming out around March.

[mike]

That stoner is too kempt to pass for a stoner.

[CarolineEAnd]

I think that in future episodes they won't have to spend as much time setting it up, so there will be more time for laughs. Kroll and Scheer both got solid laughs from me, as well as Huebel and Walsh. As long as awesome comics keep showing up and Kroll and Scheer get to keep being funny, I'll love it. I don't know if I'll 30 Rock love it, but I'll at least Dog Bites Man love it.

[mcpiranhas]

Has this already been forgotten after one week? I actually missed the first episode, so I can't speak to its improvement, but I thought last night's was really funny. My two main concerns about the show, that it would be too sports-related for me to understand and that it would be unbearably chauvinistic, weren't really an issue. Katie Aselton's part is better than most of the dudes. She's really great.

If your concern was that Kroll and Scheer weren't around enough, you should give it another go. Both of them got several big laughs out of me (one of Kroll's lines in the end made me laugh harder than anything in the previous Sunny), and I'm pretty sure the former had more screen time than Duplass, who I assume is meant to be the lead.

I like it!

[onelinedrawing]

I liked this episode, definitely an improvement on the last one. I've a feeling that it's gonna be a bit of a grower, I'm still trying to get accustomed to the characters, yeah we have the stoner and the nerd, but then we have three kind of similar characters (which is not really a complaint, I like that a show has gone completely against diversity, most of my friends look and act quite similar to me).

I am enjoying the loose improvisational feel, and there are some gems (ten pounds of pudding) but I'm still hoping the cast and crew get more comfortable with it all, and allow the scenes to go outside of the norm.

All in all a lot of fun and something I'm going to watch every week... does it remind anyone a bit of party down?

[gloshi]

I've enjoyed both episodes very much. The cast is awesome. It definitely helps knowing about football, but I think there's a good mix of football stuff and non-football stuff to where it can still be hilarious and enjoyable for people who aren't sports fans. A big thing that's interesting to me is that I don't think Paul or Nick were in to sports before doing this show, so it's interesting to watch them step on new ground, so to speak, even if it is just something like football.

[BillBrasky]

This really has nothing to do with the show, but when did FX become the "We can be as dirty as HBO, and it's no big deal" network? I always thought FX was like TBS or TNT or something, but in the first episode of this show, Jon LaJoie's singing a graphic song about having sex, and then in this episode, they're throwing the word "pussy" around like there's no tomorrow. And yet, when one of the characters says the line "You've got to be fucking kidding me" (not even a sexual use of the word "fuck"!), they had to bleep "fuck" out.

I always thought the rationale behind cable stations censoring their programming was that they really didn't have to, but they did so because they didn't want to offend their audience. (Like Comedy Central does, except for their "Secret Stash" airings). Somehow I can't see anyone sitting through this show and saying "Well, that half hour of pussy jokes was fine and didn't offend me at all, but how dare they say the word 'fuck'!" Censorship really confuses me sometimes.