"Happy Endings" premieres tonight on ABC

[BillBrasky]

The midseason comedy "Happy Endings" premieres tonight on ABC with a one hour block of two back-to-back episodes starting at 9:30 pm. The series will then move to its regularly scheduled timeslot of 10 p.m. starting next week.

The series revolves around the lives of a group of friends whose little group is rocked when the couple that brought them together, Alex and Dave, break up. This leaves the rest of the group (Max, Brad, Jane and Penny) in an awkward position of either trying to stay together as friends or having to choose sides.

The series stars Zachary Knighton ("Flash Forward"), Elisha Cuthbert ("24"), Eliza Coupe ("Scrubs"), Casey Wilson ("Saturday Night Live"), and Damon Wayans Jr. ("The Other Guys"). Directors who are working on the show include The Russo Brothers ("Community"), Fred Savage ("Party Down"), Troy Miller ("Mr. Show"), Lee Shallat-Chemel ("Arrested Development"), Matt Shakman ("It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia") and Jay Chandrasekhar (Broken Lizard).

Guest stars who are scheduled to make appearances in Season 1 include such AST favorites as T.J. Miller, Rob Huebel, Nick Thune, Ian Roberts, Brett Gelman, Danielle Schneider, June Diane Raphael and Paul Scheer. It has also been reported that Damon Wayans (father of Wayans Jr., who plays Brad) will guest star in an upcoming episode as Brad's uptight father who comes to visit him.

[mueXog]

That was fun! It already seems worlds better than all the similar "couples comedies" from this season, the big difference here is the characters (while a bit over-the-top at times, but in a good way) are actually funny. Casey and Pally really made me laugh a lot. Maybe Cuthbert & Knighton could be better, it's pretty obvious they're the only ones in the cast without a comedic background, delivering funny lines doesn't seem to come as natural to them, though they mostly seem to be the "straight men" characters so far. Wayans was pretty good too, he didn't do much yet, but at least he seems to have a good back-and-forth with Pally. Looks like next week is the episode with the Brett Gelman & Danielle Schneider subplot.

The episode guide says they filmed 13 episodes, I don't see how they'll be able to air all of them though, unless it goes into June. How does that usually work with mid-season shows? Do they wait to see if it gets picked up for another season to air the remaining episodes?

[BillBrasky]

I've never seen "Flash Forward", so the thing I associate Knighton with is his role in the 2005 failed FOX sitcom "Life on a Stick", which was a comedy. He's got kind of a Matthew Perry kind of quality to his delivery; he's all right. It's pretty obvious that Wilson, Wayans Jr., and Pally are the funny ones on the show though.

I thought the pilot was a little bit better than the second episode, but I agree that this show is a lot better so far than "Perfect Couples", "Mad Love", "Traffic Light", etc. It had some more off-the-wall kind of jokes like the chocolate wedding couple that worked pretty well.

It seems like Casey lost quite a bit of weight between the filming of the pilot and the second episode. Compare her in the workout room scene in the pilot episode to her in the second episode when the gay guy is grabbing her "ta-tas". I hope that was a personal decision and not a network-mandated thing.

[BillBrasky]

I've never seen "Flash Forward", so the thing I associate Knighton with is his role in the 2005 failed FOX sitcom "Life on a Stick", which was a comedy. He's got kind of a Matthew Perry kind of quality to his delivery; he's all right.

If anyone's interested, here's the pilot episode of that show. It was created by Victor Fresco, who also created "Andy Richter Controls the Universe" and "Better Off Ted". I always felt that it was a well-written show, but some of the performances were overly sitcommy and kind of bad, and it took away from the good writing. It takes a special kind of skill to recite some of Fresco's typically wordy dialogue, and some of the actors in this show did not have it.

[mueXog]

It seems like Casey lost quite a bit of weight between the filming of the pilot and the second episode. Compare her in the workout room scene in the pilot episode to her in the second episode when the gay guy is grabbing her "ta-tas". I hope that was a personal decision and not a network-mandated thing.

Yeah, I couldn't help but think that as well, especially after the rumors about getting fired from SNL for the same reason. Though, I also noticed the same thing with Adam Pally in the second episode.

Life on a Stick

I actually kinda remember that show. It also had the smartass Burger King guy from "Super Troopers", right? I don't think I ever watched it, but I remember seeing commercials for it.

[mueXog]

http://splitsider.com/2011/04/talkin...ith-adam-pally
SplitSider just interviewed Adam Pally, he sorta mentions how ABC plans to air the 13 episodes. He also talks about writing on Paul Scheer's new Adult Swim show (he's also credited on IMDB for appearing in one episode as "Douchey Guy"!) and that it's supposed to start airing along with the new "Childrens Hospital" episodes sometime in June.

Also, apparently ABC has suddenly decided to air back-to-back episodes again this week as well, but this time starting at 10PM. Don't think that's gonna be a regular thing though, pretty sure thats just this week.