NVTV 26: Black-Ish Halloween

Big strides for Black-Ish this week despite the absence of the show's usual MVP. The list of terrible child actors has shrunk from four to three as Yara Shahidi showed off some impressive deadpan chops. Charley Murphy returned, and was deployed with a bit more expertise. Tracee Ellis Ross turned in her usual great work but was actually given something to work with, and Anthony Anderson got to be more than just a narrator. The jokes were the most consistent they've been so far, and while the ending was telegraphed, it was also an ending that worked for the show, and didn't sell out any of its characters. Perhaps most importantly, after six weeks of pretending to be about race, Black-Ish actually showed some teeth with it's racial humor (mostly at the office).

On the negative side, the show still feels compelled to hold its audience's hand a bit too much... though sadly they may be a necessity for a hit network sitcom these days; Black-Ish is curb stomping every other show I'm reviewing in the ratings despite being somewhere in the middle of the pack qualitatively. Three out of four child actors are still butchering otherwise good material (the oldest son was particularly brutal this week, turning on-paper funny material into a real snore), and Pop's was conspicuous by his absence; since that absence likely means Hannibal is shooting again, I'm ok with it, but within the realm of Black-Ish less Pops is worrisome as he's been their most consistently funny character thus far. 

Overall, big thumbs up for this week relative to last week, and a moderate thumbs up in a vacuum. 

NVTV 25: Marry Me "Scary Me"

Swamped this week, so I don't have a ton of time to talk Marry Me. Basically, it continues to try to be Happy Endings and isn't even trying to hide it at this point, literally featuring a character (Derrick) from the older show. Marry Me isn't nearly as tight or as sharply written as Endings was at its best, but it's better than most of its competition, which is enough for now. Marion, Wilson, Gemberling, etc. are all still very funny, and it's likely that the writing will find more focus and panache as the series progresses. Tepid thumbs up. 

NVTV 24: Cristela "Mr. Felix and Mrs. Daniella"

Cristela was a bit better this week, though it's still got a way to go before it hits the Bad Judge/Selfie "Holy crap that was actually pretty good" tier. The characters beyond the lead are getting some definition- particularly Felix, who'd been entirely one-note to this point. The jokes are still more bad than good, but it's more 60/40 than 80/20, and I can live with that this early in the show's run. Comedy is hard, and if you make me care about the characters I'll give you some time. 

Cristela's not quite there yet, but it's close. The title character is very charismatic, and there's nobody actually bad- more than I can say for, say, Mulaney or A to Z. Judging Cristela against its peers is probably the only way to make it look very good, but luckily for Cristela, I've committed to watching its peers, and it's probably the fourth or fifth best of the eight so far. It still has problems, and I'm never going to embrace the laugh track, but it's relatively harmless and has the potential to be something more than that. It'd help a lot if the show realized how much stronger the stuff at the office is than the stuff at the house, but it's likely that those two worlds will overlap more and more as the show goes on anyway. 

I'd like to see funnier jokes and less low-hanging pandering to the monkeys  in the live studio audience, but for what it wants to do, Cristela's doing a decent job, even if I'd rather it do something else.