Fienberg and I spent a decent portion of this week's podcast bashing the hell out of "Gravity," the heinous new non-comedy that Starz has for whatever reason decided to pair with "Party Down" tonight at 10:30. For those of you who read but don't listen, here's the gist: It was created by and co-stars Eric Schaeffer, an actor/writer/producer who specializes in making incredibly uncomfortable films ("If Lucy Fell") and/or TV shows ("Starved") in which he plays completely loathsome human beings surrounded by broad caricatures. Here, he's a cop who somehow becomes connected to members of a support group for suicide survivors (including Krysten Ritter, Ivan Sergei and, given nothing to do in the episodes I've seen, Ving Rhames).
I actually vaguely liked "Starved" (about a support group for people with eating disorders) when it debuted, in part because it seemed to have a point-of-view about its subject, in part because I thought some of its comedy bits were, while gross, kind of funny. (They did an episode where Schaeffer's character had a mishap while getting a colonic.) Here, I have no idea what the point of anything is, nor what exactly I'm supposed to find funny (other than, again, a bunch of broadly-drawn stereotypes about gays and other minorities). Nor do I have any idea why Schaeffer's character is on the show, save that Schaeffer likes to put himself in the things he does.
It's not funny, it's not engaging, it's not in any way, shape or form a good match with "Party Down," and I would advise those of you watching that show tonight to change the channel abruptly as soon as the end credits are done rolling.
That is all.
