POP PSYCHOLOGY: Familiar “Friends” return to small screen with new roles
By Alex Goodman
Feb. 14, 2011 3:33 a.m.
It’s been a while since we spent much quality time with our old “Friends.”
Well, that’s not exactly true. Courteney Cox invites us over to “Cougar Town” every week, and Jennifer Aniston shows up regularly with a new man: Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Ben Affleck, Gerard Butler. Just last week she brought home Adam Sandler, and asked us to “Just Go With It.”
Our guy “Friends,” though, haven’t been so good about keeping in touch.
But Matthew Perry and Matt LeBlanc have made a New Year’s resolution to change all that, and they both seem genuine about keeping it up.
Perry re-entered our lives last week with the premiere of the half-hour comedy “Mr. Sunshine,” and we have standing plans to meet again every Wednesday night on ABC. He plays Ben Donovan, the operations manager of the Sunshine Center, an entertainment arena in San Diego ““ in the pilot, it hosts a charity event and a circus.
Perry clearly wants to be his same old self, the nice guy with a witty aside for every situation. He looks tired, though, and in this new role he doesn’t so much crack wise as express surprise or exasperation when absurd things happen around him. A co-worker says something racist and he raises an eyebrow; a roaming elephant approaches and he runs away.
Worst of all, this Donovan character claims to be insensitive and self-absorbed; we know our old friend better than that, and he doesn’t try very hard to convince us otherwise.
He introduced us to some new friends last week, and I have to admit I like some of them better. We’ve seen Allison Janney before, in “The West Wing” and “Juno,” and it looks like she’s having as much fun as she’s ever had, putting the “mania” in megalomania as Crystal Cohen, the owner of the Sunshine Center.
Nate Torrence, whom a few of us encountered briefly in “She’s Out of My League,” flirts similarly with insanity as Cohen’s son, Roman. Perry should spend some time with Torrence and Janney ““ maybe they can teach him how to enjoy himself again.
At the very least, Andrea Anders, as Alice, the head of marketing and Donovan’s friend with benefits, might remind Perry about the joys of sarcasm. And might I point out that the first time some of us met Anders was in “Joey,” that short-lived spin-off meant to keep Matt LeBlanc in our lives after “Friends.”
LeBlanc reappeared a month ago with “Episodes,” a new Showtime series about a British couple who move to Hollywood to remake their hit show. He looks sprightlier than Perry does, despite the streaks of grey in his hair.
His character is more punch-line than protagonist. He plays himself, and becomes one of an endless series of nightmares for the British couple when the network decides to cast LeBlanc in the lead role ““ in the original version, that character was the elderly headmaster of an all-boys boarding school. So far, at least, “Episodes” is less about LeBlanc than it is about the show-within-a-show’s creators, played by Stephen Mangan and Tamsin Greig.
He may not be the center of attention, but LeBlanc has the better comeback project.
“Episodes” appears headed for the relaxed, naturalistic tone of the Showtime network, the home of shows about bad things happening to normal-seeming characters. This time, though, the dysfunction comes from Hollywood and the television industry rather than from family problems.
Acerbic and British, Mangan and Greig have more freedom to complain, because they’re outsiders and relatively innocent victims.
A role like that could work well for Perry, but “Mr. Sunshine” forfeits any such opportunity by replacing his character’s personality with a forced suggestion of bitterness.
We don’t want to see our old friend Chandler unhappy; Perry was too likeable in that role, and he hasn’t done nearly enough since then to avoid typecasting. When we hear his new show is called “Mr. Sunshine,” we don’t want to find out the title is meant to be sarcastic.
Many of us, I’m sure, will show up to see him every Wednesday night, week after week. But it’s hard to watch a pal who’s lost his touch. If “Mr. Sunshine” doesn’t brighten up, we may have to get by with a little help from our “Friends.”
