{"id":4098,"date":"2015-03-25T12:49:47","date_gmt":"2015-03-25T16:49:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/?p=4098"},"modified":"2015-03-25T12:49:47","modified_gmt":"2015-03-25T16:49:47","slug":"one-big-happy-review-1-2-out-of-the-closet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/2015\/03\/25\/one-big-happy-review-1-2-out-of-the-closet\/","title":{"rendered":"One Big Happy Review: 1.2: Out of the Closet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The second episode of <em>One Big Happy<\/em> was a vast improvement on the pilot, not that this is saying much. There were actually a few laughs and everyone in the ensemble is now clearly defined and showing their potential. But, the whole thing is still weighed down by a lot of unbelievably embarrassing humor. For instance, at one point during the episode, Prudence declared, &#8220;Look, it&#8217;s my grandma&#8217;s cock!&#8221; and it panned to her holding a ceramic rooster.<\/p>\n<p>This episode had Lizzy dealing with an ex named Erica who she&#8217;s not over despite how terrible Erica was to her. Some of the jokes in this plot aren&#8217;t bad. When Luke reminds her that Erica dumped her on her birthday, Lizzy says, &#8220;In Erica&#8217;s defense, she said that she forgot it was my birthday.&#8221; When Luke tells her to get over her, Lizzy says, &#8220;Oh my God. Thank you. &#8216;Get over her.&#8217; That is the best advice I&#8217;ve heard since my dad told me &#8216;just be straight.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Other attempts at jokes in the episode were cringe-inducing. When Lizzy tells Prudence not to go in her closet, Prudence asks, &#8220;Why is that closet special? Is it the one you came out of?&#8221; Then when Luke says that it&#8217;s where she&#8217;s saving all of Erica&#8217;s stuff even though they broke up three years ago, he says, &#8220;Lesbians move in quick but they get over each other real slow.&#8221; Ugh.<\/p>\n<p>A major problem with the show is that it&#8217;s so over-the-top with its multi-camera, laugh track sitcom style. Even when the jokes are well-written, they don&#8217;t play as well as they would with a less cheesy execution. It doesn&#8217;t have to get rid of the laughtrack or multi-camera format entirely. <em>Mom<\/em>, for example, is a show that has done a great job of using this format without feeling totally outdated.<\/p>\n<p>The material has gotten just bareable enough that Elisha Cuthbert is able to shine. I am glad that, if nothing else, this show provided me with an episode that begins and ends with Elisha Cuthberg cringing and saying, &#8220;Ugh, straight people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The best moments of <em>One Big Happy<\/em>&#8216;s second episode made me think that it might get better, but they still have a lot of work to do improving it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The second episode of One Big Happy was a vast improvement on the pilot, not that this is saying much. There were actually a few laughs and everyone in the ensemble is now clearly defined and showing their potential. But, the whole thing is still weighed down by a lot of unbelievably embarrassing humor. For<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/2015\/03\/25\/one-big-happy-review-1-2-out-of-the-closet\/\" title=\"Read More\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":183,"featured_media":4101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,176],"tags":[1831],"class_list":{"0":"post-4098","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-television","8":"category-television-reviews","9":"tag-one-big-happy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/183"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hardwoodandhollywood.com\/pop-culture-spin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}