Update (because you care, right??)
Now I've seen a few episodes from season 1 and so far, thumbs up. On occasion, Ron's voice does grate and it doesn't really add anything (yet?) but it has been acceptable.
re: wacky situation sans jokes comment.
I disagree, to a point. I've seen half a dozen or so episodes and each has had a genuine laugh out loud moment or two (and that's one or two more than most sitcoms...). I can understand the sentiment though. At times, the show felt 'amusing' rather than funny -- like I understand this is smart and 'funny' but I'm not actually laughing. (Maybe this is what the agent (?) meant when he told Mr. Kotter, "I'm laughing in here," pointing at his chest.)
re: The Newsroom.
I saw the first season of this show before I moved from Montreal. I liked it. I think, at the time, it was accurately pegged as a semi-ripoff of The Larry Sanders Show, simply transplanted into the news division. I only recently learned that there was a season 2 and 3 with almost whole new cast (it was years later)... Anyone know how they compare?
re: 3 episodes and out.
Maybe try it again. I've heard it only gets better and better, in particular once you hit seasons 2 and 3 ...
re: Trailer Park
I had trouble getting through one episode.
re: producers don't have creative input.
Well, I'm no expert but I think in TV (perhaps as opposed to movies) producers often do have creative input (that is heeded...) For example, wfmu people we know and enjoy are 'producers' of monk and I think they have a lot of creative input for the series in general and not just the episodes they write. Also, I think 'show-runners' in general are credited as producers. In any event, in this instance in particular, this excerpt from the onion's interview with Mitchell Hurwitz is enlightening:
O: Once you made the decision to include a narrator, how did you end up with Ron Howard?
MH: He's the co-founder of Imagine Entertainment, and he's the one who kind of started this idea. And he's got such a great voice. I was talking to him mostly on the phone, because he lives in Connecticut. It seemed like it would be a great way to play against what was emerging as a very frantic half-hour, with his calm, familiar, trustworthy voice. We wanted something that was not judgmental at all. He could say things like "Tobias boarded a van full of homosexuals…" with no spin on it. It was also kind of a manipulation, because one of the ways we got through the door at Fox with this unusual idea was because of Ron—not only his clout, but his creative judgment. He was very involved in every stage of the writing process. I'd finish a draft and get it to him, and he'd have ideas and suggestions. That was of great value to the network. It was just a manipulation, in a way. Because it was like, "If we could get Ron to do the voiceover, if he can do the narrator, then he would, by its very nature, be involved in the show every week. Even though he's going to want to go back and do his movies, he's going to have to be involved with this show, which is going to make the show better. It's also going to raise the profile of the show to the network." Because at this point, it was just a pilot. We weren't making a series at the start.
So there were things like that that I was just doing to stack the deck in our favor. Including the "On the next Arrested Development…" Which is a very presumptuous thing to put at the end of the pilot, because it's just a pilot. So the people screening it in New York, the advertisers, think "Oh, is there another one? I didn't realize we'd made this decision yet." But it also upped the test scores. One of the questions they asked of the test audiences after they screened the pilot is "Would you see it again?" It was a great way to get those numbers high. It was like, "Oh, I have to. There's another one coming."
