Miss Guided: A far cry from Kitty lifting her shirt up
Posted by Dan
March 27th, 2008 at 10:15am
In Miss Guided
After seemingly being in the incubator long forever, Miss Guided finally pecked its way out of its mid-season replacement egg and into the barn of primetime television.
I challenge you to come up with a more contrived metaphor.
Moving on. Miss Guided is a single camera comedy focusing on guidance counselor/former high school misfit Becky Freeley. She’s blonde, perky, awkward and full of that kind of blind enthusiasm that just barely masks the exasperated terror underneath.
The rest of the faculty is represented by the sexpot brunette English teacher, the Spanish teacher they’re both fawning after, the grumpy principal and the cartoonish school administrator. All the characters are absurd caricatures, thus spawning outlandish plotlines.
Is it any good? Well, kind of. I’m a hard-ass when it comes to comedy, as you know, and Miss Guided does a lot more things right than a lot of fledgling comedies.
First of all, the cast is pretty strong. I find Judy Greer really riveting, mostly because of her fragility. Even when she was Kitty on Arrested Development, I felt like I wanted to protect her from the world. She was in that M. Night Shyamalan movie The Village (yeah, I know) and in that role I really felt drawn to her — wanting to shield her from the dangers of the world. This is an ideal role for Greer, the beta female with equal parts jittery nervousness and innocent goodwill. She’s got the chops, but sometimes the writing doesn’t seem to live up to Greer’s potential.
As for the rest of the cast, Chris Parnell basically plays the same character he plays on 30 Rock, except instead of a doctor he’s a school administrator. And on one of the opening episodes, they stunt cast Ashton Kutcher (he’s an executive producer) as a “dreamy” bohemian substitute teacher. He was not dreamy. Nor was he hilarious.
Will I keep watching Miss Guided? Probably for a little bit — hoping that it’ll find its voice and turn into the absurdist school faculty comedy it hopes to be. And the vehicle that Judy Greer deserves. Hopefully I won’t just “Eli Stone” it and keep watching it despite having lost interest soon after the premiere.
it’s funny. after all this writer’s strike support, I find myself liking the actors/characters than the actual stories (and sometimes dialogue) on a few shows right now (Miss Guided, Eli Stone, Men in Trees, Lipstick Jungle, Cashmere Mafia. I noticed it when I was trying to write an unsuccessful post about MIT, ES and LJ and realised thats mainly what Im watching for now)).
That being said, I think I’m a bit less harsh on MG and ES than you. Though it’s probably because I’m so tired to defend from anything coming my way.
Mrs. Poole! From the Hogan Family! Woah. And she comes back as an American history teacher, awesome. (I’m an American history teacher.)
Ha, didn’t know she croaked when I wrote that.
I actually am reallying enjoying this show. (And Eli Stone) Maybe it’s the lack of comedy on tv right now (Althought HIMYM and Big BAng are back, YAY!) but it’s pretty durn funny.
But it’s mainly Greer doing a fantastic job carrying the show.
Yeah, I feel like this show could get pretty strong if it has a chance to stick around for awhile. I haven’t seen last night’s episodes yet (were they the last ones of the order? EW seemed to think so) but the last one before that, with the car wash and the Perez Hilton-esque school blog, was the best one so far. I’m hoping it gels into sort of a (more) farcical Boston Public. The straight-to-the-camera thing (confusingly presented in widescreen? zer?) can go, though. I wouldn’t exactly call it “good” yet, but Greer makes it enjoyable. I totally agree with everything you say about her, especially her being good and striking in The Village. She has a great part in a movie that I don’t think got a real theatrical release called The Specials (it’s basically like Mystery Men, but cheaper and not as good).
If there was pre-strike TV on, I probably wouldn’t be watching this now. Greer is good–I loved her in Jawbreaker–but I don’t love any of this. The blog ep was good and even clever, but doesn’t this all feel like Malcolm in the Middle with different clothes on? Except MitM was much, much funnier. This show is like Cherry Pepsi. You’ll drink it, but all you really want is Cherry Coke.
Speaking of beverages, has anyone noticed that the high school is named after cheap wine?
Glen Ellen —> http://www.glenellenwinery.com/