The House Next Door

Showtime needs to start selling T-Shirts with the words I DIG WEEDS plastered across the chest.

Two years ago the big new shows were DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES & LOST. A year later, the networks churned out at least three LOSTesque type shows, but only Showtime seemed to follow DH's lead - which strikes me as odd, as you'd think it'd have been the easier show to emulate.

But WEEDS trumps DH time and again and it does so in half the amount of time, no less (technically a quarter [pun unintentional] if you go by the season running time). It's a grand show and nearly every episode offers at least one genuine belly-laugh - if not more.

Who didn't reel at the grand writing & timing of this S1 gem?:

(Andy and Doug sit in the living room getting high and discussing the "taint".)

ANDY: Hey Lupita! What do you call the thing between the dick and the asshole?

LUPITA: The coffee table.

The only character the bugs me is Patano's Heylia, and it's got less to do with the actress than it does the writing. She's very much the stereotypical black matriarch who's wiser, wittier and sassier than everyone around her. I'd really like to see her given more dimension in S2, by opening up emotionally to Conrad or Vaneeta or perhaps just being utterly ~wrong~ about something - something that has some kind of drastic consequence.

Maybe I want too much from a half-hour comedy?

Ross: My only regret about this series -- besides the semi-regular lapses into sitcom cuteness, which I've chided them about in other Ledger pieces -- is that they still don't quite seem to trust our trust in them, if you know what I mean. The show's got a pretty droll, sick sense of humor, and pushes it about as far as it can without stumbling into faux David Lynch (or worse, faux Todd Solondz) territory. But I do get the sense that the writers sometimes pull their punches because this is supposed to be a comedy. Personally I would like to see them go really dark, or at least do something to really upset the audience instead of settling for jokey unease. They actors are clearly willing and able, and I think the audience would go along if they felt they weren't just getting their chains yanked a la Six Feet Under, which often grasped after significance but rarely produced anything except Emmy clips.

The show's something of a trifle, really, but it is a witty and well-acted trifle, so I'm content. The Six Feel Under comps are apt, not only cuz they steal the obnoxious/rebellious brother character, but also in that it does probe beneath the surface of suburban serenity, but it is not nearly as deep or satirical as it thinks it is. If that makes any sense. A few too many stereotypes and easy laughs for my taste, but I still watch the damn thing so I guess it hasn't completely lost me. If it every steps over the line into faux Solondz (to borrow Matt's terminology) territory, though, I am outta here.