First Impressions: The Class

Remember last year when My Name Is Earl and Everybody Hates Chris came along making us believe that we may be witnessing of a new renaissance of the sitcom. Even How I Met Your Mother was watchable. But then there was also The War at Home and the laugh-less midseason replacements like Four Kings and Emily’s Reasons Why Not. Unfortunately that trend looks to continue with this year’s crop of sitcoms starting with The Class.

The show does have a decent pedigree as it comes from the guys who created Friends and Mad About You. The plot is you usual absurd sitcom fair with a guy, Jason Ritter (John’s son), decides to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the first day he met his girlfriend which happened on the first day of third grade by gathering the other classmates for a surprise party despite not talking to any of them for a long time. And for some reason some of the people showed up, but none of the black classmates showed up of course as this was a show from the creator of Friends.

But the weakest part of the show is the cast. Ritter tries too hard as the overzealous party planner. Lizzy Caplan is just re-hashing her Mean Girls character. You can tell this because she's back to the black hair which means she's moody. Then she has a presumably twin sister (they are in the same class) that is somehow the exact opposite even though they have lived w\hat looks like their whole life together. Then there are those that make no sense to why they would even show up like the local newscaster who explains the only reason she wants to go is to confront her prom date who turns out to be gay. The supposed joke here is that, in a sitcom context, her ex-boyfriend would be Will (of Grace fame) while her husband is Jack. Less plausible is the football player’s wife played by someone who was on Joey so I don’t expect you to know who she is. And if wondering why she showed up in the first place, what she does at the end of the episode is even less conceivable.

There are some redeemable aspects of the show. Jon Bernthal plays the resident jock that made nothing of his life and lives in his mother’s basement had some funny lines especially when he goes at it with his mom. Then there was the loveable loser portrayed by Jesse Tyler Ferguson who provides some humorously funny lines with his dire outlook. Oddly enough, nowhere in the first episode did anyone decided that meeting up with each other should become a regular occasion, but there were connections made between individuals that will most likely continue. It may be interesting to see where the show is going if it would incorporate more funny situations, and better actors to deliver the lines.

Verdict: Normally I would bail on a show like this, but since each new episode will be available for streaming the day after it airs on CBS’s broadband channel Innertube (if you missed the show and want to see it for yourself hop over there) with limit ads, giving me a chance to watch it when ever I want, I may give it a couple more chances.

Also available on Innertube is the second season premiere of the previously mentioned How I Met Your Mother. At the end of last season I thought that Ted and Robin hooking up was a potential Jump the Shark moment and this episode only strengthened that assumption. At least Barney had some classic lines.