Barack Obama: American Stories – Pilot

FOX

(Season 1, Episode 1 – Series Premiere)

I tuned into FOX tonight to see the conclusion of the World Series game five, which had been pre-empted because of the weather a couple of day ago. Little did I know FOX was going to use the extra time available before the game started to launch a new series. I consider myself someone who’s pretty up-to-date on the television landscape, but I had no idea FOX had such an unusual pilot even in the pipelines.

In all honesty, I’m not even sure what kind of show this is trying to be. You’d think with a half-hour slot it would be a comedy, which is what I was expecting, but it wasn’t particularly funny. When the narrator, a good-looking black fellow named Barack Obama, started talking directly to the camera and breaking the fourth wall I thought we might be looking at a new generation of The Bernie Mac Show. Instead, I get the feeling this new show isn’t quite sure what it wants to be.

Narration: I’m not sure if they’re sticking with it, but at least for this premiere Obama framed the whole episode around intimate chats and larger speeches as if he were a candidate for President. It’s an interesting take. It’s possible next week he’ll frame them all as if he’s a CEO trying out applicants for a new opening in his company, or a dying man trying to decide who to leave his estate to when he passes on. There are so many possibilities here, and each could fit the theme of the particular episode and be pretty funny. Unfortunately, I guess with politics in the forefront of everyone’s mind, this framing wasn’t funny at all. But then again, neither was the rest of the episode.

I’m not nearly as sold on the short bits from other people, like VH1 does on all their list shows. Now we’ve got multiple people talking directly to the audience. There wasn’t even enough time to establish the direction of the series or get to know any of the main cast. I get the cleverness in having politicians do the bits to tie into the “President” theme, but they weren’t funny either. With a half-hour show you don’t have time for all of these “clever” little tricks anyway so pick one and stick with it. Hell, they brought us this pilot commercial free and it still fell short.

The Cast (I Think): There were no opening or closing credits, so I’m not really sure if they’re going with a regular cast or a rotating cast. It looks like Barack is playing a character with his same name; I guess he went to the Tony Danza School of Acting. I didn’t recognize any of the other actors.

• Barack Obama (Narrator) - He certainly spent enough time mugging for the camera.
• Rebecca Johnston (Kansas City, MO) – Rebecca lives in a nice house with a nice car and great hair. Think the perfect soccer mom. She’ll be the prim and proper one who gets laughs by getting upset.
• Larry Stewert (Sardinia, OH) – It looks like they’re setting Larry up to be the lovable, gruff, and cantankerous old guy down the street, like a Fred Sanford. “You need to loosen up, Rebecca. Let those kids get dirty!”
• Julianna Sanchez (Albuquerque, NM) – Julianna works at a school for “at risk” kids, but is struggling financially and had to take a second job. They should have Rebecca get a job here and not be able to handle all the troubled and improper behavior.
• Joe Biden (Scranton, PN) – At least this character looks like he’s going to be intimately involved with the narrator’s storyline. In fact, he’s the only character to appear with Barack at any given time.
• Mark Dowell (Louisville, KY) – Mark and his wife are factory workers. Mark recently had his hours cut, while his wife was laid off completely after eight years at work, so now they’re … you guessed it … struggling to get those bills paid. Blue collar family moves into a new city to find a job at a school for “at risk” kids. Of course these are guesses on my part because the show gave us nothing!

There’s the potential for a Roseanne type of show with them all finding work together and butting heads and personalities, but American Stories really dropped the ball in this pilot and wound up establishing absolutely nothing except that their narrator wants to make love to his own soundbites.

There’s no explanation as to why the cast lives all around the country. Maybe Rebecca’s daughter is a cheerleader and the rest of the cast will have to unite to save her or let her get dirty, thus saving the world or some nonsense.

Summary: I think this pilot tried to be too clever and wound up a mess. We got way too much screen time for Mr. Obama and him blathering on about a million different things. That Larry looks like a funny guy. Give him a chance, Barack, and quit hogging the damn camera! Only one episode in the can and he’s already taken over the whole production! Hell, his was the only name even on the show. I might tune in next week to see if they figure out what they’re going to do with all of this, but honestly I don’t see how they could.

Clacked by Jason Hughes
on Oct 30, 2008 @ 08:48 EST5EDT