The new NBC sitcom Mister Perfect started life as a 30 Rock spinoff in which Jack Donaghy of Alec Baldwin, having conquered the corporate world of GE and Kabletown, would run for mayor of New York City. Baldwin ended up not agreeing to a contract, and at that point 30 Rock creator Tina Fey and her longtime collaborator Robert Carlock have moved to another high-profile, Emmy-winning NBC institution: Ted Danson. They changed the story to Los Angeles, because the Cheers and Good place alum didn’t want to move, and voila, a series was born.
On the one hand, this turn of events was a blessing in disguise. The things that made Baldwin so funny and weird about 30 Rock it worked in part because Jack was not the protagonist. Even the most Jack-centered stories tended to be filtered at least a little by Liz Lemon’s healthier worldview, which allowed Jack to be bigger than life most of the time. This version of Jack shouldn’t be the star of his own show. Although Baldwin is a talented and versatile actor enough to play a more subtle version of the character, it is good to remember him as an avatar from the late Bush years (and Obama’s early years), especially considering how difficult it is to bring an iconic comedy characters back so many years later. (And considering the frequency with which Jack checked the names of contemporary Republican politicians in 30 Rock, the show would have no choice but to enter the waters of Trump-y, which would be a strange fit after Baldwin’s run as commander-in-chief in SNL.) Choosing Danson as an entirely new character – Neil Bremer, a retired billboard tycoon who runs for office primarily to impress his teenage daughter Orly (Kyla Kennedy) – gives Fey and Carlock a clean slate and one of the best actors of all times a TV set comedy.
On the other hand, the original iteration of Mister Perfect he had a few things going for him. Fey and Carlock already knew exactly what motivated Jack, as well as the types of material that Baldwin prepared best (as well as the jokes they should probably avoid with him). And between 30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, they proved that they can satirize the peculiarities of New York as few in the history of the medium have ever done. With Danson, they have a new character, a new star and a less familiar location. They are starting from scratch in almost every way, but even veteran scribes like these two need time to figure out what works for this world, these characters and the actors who play them. 30 Rock it took half a dozen episodes or more to start becoming the classic we remember him from, and then Fey at least had the advantage of knowing how she would deliver her own dialogue.
The two episodes of Mister Perfect that NBC has given critics is a work in progress. In many instances, it is driven by Danson’s fundamental charisma and comic grace, as well as his chemistry with Kennedy (end of ABC’s wonderful and underrated family comedy of special needs Speechless) In others, he’s struggling to find his comedic voice and apply it to a supporting cast that includes Holly Hunter as Neil’s ally rival, Arpi Meskimen; Bobby Moynihan as the socially awkward communications director Jayden Kwapis; Vella Lovell as Insta’s famous chief of staff, Mikaela Shaw; and Mike Cabellon as strategist Tommy Tomás.
Danson is charming, especially in a story in the second episode where Neil has a bad reaction to some edible items after a photo opportunity at the city’s 10,000th marijuana dispensary. It’s quite material, but Danson is so willing to look ridiculous and such a precise physical comedian – at 73, he is better at making laughs at the way he moves, or even stands, than when he played Sam Malone – who is funny despite the familiarity. But in the process of becoming publicly roasted, Neil creates more PR problems for himself than Mister Perfect seems to know or care about how to approach.
In this way, it is illustrative of the various obstacles created by the transition from Baldwin to Danson. The creators are in foreign territory, with very little in the early stories that seems specific to Los Angeles. (Even the plot of the dispensary could be happening in any of the big cities that have legalized marijuana in recent years.) And a supposedly prolonged negotiation with Baldwin, followed by the time it took to reorganize and relocate the show to Danson, has been pushed back. debuts at a time when the idea of a comedy about an unqualified boy who takes a political position for reasons of vanity works differently. The pilot explicitly sets the show in a post-pandemic world, although it is debuting in a real-life moment, when Los Angeles hospitals are drowning in Covid patients due to systemic failures at various levels of government. And now here is Neil Bremer, with no idea what he should be doing, let alone how to do anything, and mostly wanting to look cool. The timing is bad, to say the least.
Holly Hunter as Arpi Meskimen.
Mitchell Haddad / NBC
These first episodes also don’t do enough with Danson and Hunter together. It’s not just that placing co-stars with a height difference of 12 inches in the same frame is inherently fun (Veep he did this frequently with Selina and Jonah), but pairing the veteran of City Hall Arpi with the neophyte Neil provides some humanity needed for his wokeness caricature. (Among Arpi’s many political concerns, Jayden explains, is the explosion in the coyote population, only: “She thinks the word ‘coyote’ is cultural appropriation and that we should call them ‘mini wolves’. She also thinks that we must pay for birth control. ”)
These episodes are more conventional sitcom than 30 Rock or Kimmy Schmidt, but both programs were healthier at the beginning than at the end. 30 Rock in particular, it didn’t take off until its tone became more absurd. And the more cartoon Mister Perfect potentially, less echoes of our own depressing reality will undermine the jokes.
“I don’t like to hear that I’m troubled, Tommy!” Neil complains after a little bad publicity. “Well, nobody knows,” replies Tommy, “but the cancellation comes to us all.” With such an impressive collection of talent, on both sides of the camera, Mister Perfect you don’t have to worry about canceling anytime soon. But, like Neil Bremer behind a podium, the show needs to find out what it is doing in this new office and how to harness its power.
Mister Perfect debuts on January 7 on NBC.