It's only aired 2 so far. I thought the Welcome to Sweden Pilot was awful, just absolutely terrible comedic timing. My wife sort of liked it, so I'll only watch the second one if she wants to.

I never planned on watching Welcome To Sweden.

They've only aired 2 Working The Engels eps so far, but that doesn't mean the rest of the eps aren't "out there".

Why would they be out there if the show is in the process of airing? I don't understand.

I guess that insider savvy only goes so far

Pick one:

Wildfeeds
They're On Demand somewhere (including overseas)
The studio leaked them all to create buzz
Someone with access (possibly review copies) leaked the episodes
Someone with access got hacked (including by family members)

This was decent. Someone must have watched "Royal Pains" and thought, "This would be so much better done seriously" (They're right).

My wife did say, "This sure is the year of the *******. I'm getting tired of it."

I can't disagree, "The ******* with a heart of gold" is becoming a really over-used trope. I'm actually not sure if it's a trend towards main characters becoming more douchy or a shying away from true anti-heroes like Vic Mackey or Walter White.

I'll give it a try, I have a pretty low bar for comedies (I still watch Big Bang) & if I get a couple good laughs it works for me.

I'm playing dumb that these things can happen, but it doesn't make sense to the insider. Leaking shows in any of the ways (except studio) is extremely bad, and not worth it for a show of this caliber. When stuff is leaked, jobs are lost and careers are ruined. It's just not worth the long term cost for anyone to put the stuff out illegally. But, I will be one of the first people to tell you that there are a lot of stupid people in the business who have no clue how dumb stuff like this is. My career would never be worth doing something like that. I'm actually professionally benefiting right now from some idiot leaking material for no discernible reason (meaning that one of my clients got all of the work the leaker used to do once that company got fired).

Didn't it air in Canada before? Or was it just filmed there?

The pilot was kinda rough to get through, but it had it's moments. Most of those moments are Abigail's eyes and the rest are Andrea Martin. The flaky daughter could be okay, but the son is a low-rent-wannabe-version of Jason Sudeikis.

Good point, yes, it was a Canadian production. That's a good way it would be available.

I just liked the general wackiness of the show. The Pilot was out there (directed by one of the really good directors of Psych). Too bad episode 2 wasn't as good as the Pilot, though maybe you'll like the second episode better. Me and you haven't ever really lined up much on comedies...lol.

That is true.

I'm a huge sucker for a sitcom. Multi-cam, single-cam, I don't really care. It takes A LOT for any sitcom I've started to not continue to watch. The only one recently that I've dropped is "The Millers". And that's coming from a guy who watches 2 Broke Girls.

It aired in Canada starting in March.

I still have 15 episodes of The Millers on the DVR that I may try to get through before September. I managed to quit 2 Broke Girls cold turkey at some point, but I don't remember how early into last season it was. I finally snapped out of the trance. I was smart enough to check out of Bad Teacher after episode 1. I'm still with the "sitcom" Nurse Jackie, despite hating that character with a passion.

It's been really hard to sell me on modern sitcoms, because I just don't think very many get it right (there are some great or once great ones like Veep, Parks, B99, etc.), and there are just so many great older sitcoms I can watch every day on MeTV or Antenna TV (list is too long to write), and some of the more recent ones are available throughout syndication. I think most sitcoms just forget they're supposed to be funny, and try to go more for emotional beats. If they want something like that, all they have to do is go back to Cheers and see how they did it. Everyone's still trying to make another Cheers, but they always find out that it's just too damn hard to do. Considering that every single actor in that show played their part in EMMY caliber ways, despite none of them being particularly known at the time shows how brilliant it was. The fact that most of them (outside of Shelly Long) went on to have really good careers afterward shows how well they were chosen. I never thought Coach could be replaced, but Woody Harrelson was flat out amazing in that show as his replacement.

Last night, I found out that Encore Classics is airing Night Court twice in the evenings. I used to love that show growing up, and when I saw it was on I asked my wife to turn to it. She said, "I don't want to watch that", but turned it there anyway. It took about 30 seconds for her to get her first laugh, and she stayed with it laughing frequently to the end of the episode (another broad, wacky show with just exceptional comedic actors in it). I don't think Night Court's been in syndication for years, so I might just have to re-visit it.

Did you watch it?

No, it's very rare for me to take on a new comedy. IMO Sturgeon's Law is way too optimistic when it comes to sit-coms. Well, live action anyway. All the best seem to be animation these days (Bob's Burgers, Rick and Morty). I think Brooklyn 99 is my only pick-up since BBT and HIMYM.

I also really can't take "cringe"/embarrassment comedy (Arrested Development, Curb) which is a pretty big trend.

2BG is pretty legit imo, it's just a bit old school and relies entirely on Kat Dennings.

I might give a sitcom a shot if it's not quite in my wheelhouse (something like The Goldbergs), but I usually will only give shots to shows I like the cast of (or the writers), when it comes to sitcoms (or if it has a bizarre premise, like Don't Trust the B which ended up awful after a good start, or The Neighbors, which I just lost interest in in season 2). Happy Endings is definitely not my type of show, so I never tried it. A friend of mine is an editor on New Girl, and I just didn't get very far with that one either. I went into The Mindy Project expecting it to be terrible, but was very pleasantly surprised at how good it has been. Now that they've basically been guaranteed two more seasons, I'm sincerely hoping they get back to the quality of season 1.

I actually think riverboatking would probably have enjoyed the Pilot for Working the Engels. He has the kind of whacked out sense of humor you need to get into a show like that.

i'm surprised at how popular network shows are. they have to appeal to the lowest common denominator. i would have guessed that all the cable shows would have made them obsolete. or at least had a kind of tv show divide between the unwashed masses who could easily fit in the world of mike judge's "idiocracy"(go away i'm baitin')

but some of you here seem to have at least somewhat of a functioning brain and you still enjoy many network shows. i don't understand.

maybe part of the appeal of tv is turn off your brain and sit there and shoves chips in your face while you watch some mind numbing toxic waste(crisis on nbc comes to mind)

oh that reminds me! chasing life is on tonight! **** yes!

There are actually some good network shows. Many people can remember when there were good network TV shows, but just as parts of cable are in a "Golden Era", the networks have been left behind overall (since they just can't push the envelope like cable can, and when they do, the viewers don't reward them, as is the case with Hannibal). They just care about how many viewers they can get, and when you don't have subscription dollars backing you up, that's really just fine. Every once in awhile, a good show squeaks through, and hits with viewers, but it doesn't happen enough anymore (remember, Cheers, Seinfeld, and M*A*S*H were network shows that were way a cut above the vast majority of modern comedies). The Person of Interest "clone" or derivative or whatever you want to call it, The Blacklist, was a very pleasant surprise. It was great popcorn television, and it connected with audiences. I would like many more entertaining villain type shows than some of the stuff that's out there now that is filled with bland characters. All of the better network procedurals have to have major quirks to have appeal for me anymore, and most of the ones that don't have the quirks are so poorly cast that I can't get into them (like Prime Suspect from NBC a couple of years ago).

I think the network shows I watch are:

Mom
The Blacklist
Sleepy Hollow
The Follolwing
Person of Interest
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
The Mindy Project
The Goldbergs (bunch backed up on the DVR, so no telling if I will make it to season 2)
Parks and Recreation
Chicago PD
Scandal
Elementary
Grimm
Hannibal
The Millers (have 15 backed up on the DVR, so it's dubious whether I'll make it to season 2)

Because of the past history of network TV, I will give a shot to most dramas that even remotely appeal to me (same with procedurals which I've always been a big fan of). Most of the time, the stuff is not good, but there are a lot of little diamonds in the rough right now. Your hyperbole meter is high on something like The Blacklist, but that show is nearly perfectly executed for what it's trying to be. It was a nice breath of fresh air on network TV this past season, similar to how Brooklyn Nine-Nine is for network comedies, and how Person of Interest was a few years ago (all those, along with Hannibal and Grimm, give me hope for network TV eventually somewhat rising above the reality craze). I watch a whole lot of TV, so while it might look like I watch a lot of network shows, it's still probably not even close to 50 percent of my typical viewing.

The Mindy Project?

o_O

It's okay for you not to like it, but it is definitely not a bad show. As someone with a Ron Swanson avatar, I would expect you to hate it almost as much as he hates vegetables and bureaucracy.

Its amazing that Netflix has 50mil subscribers. Makes you wonder what the true viewing figures are for stuff like Breaking Bad.

I'm enjoying The Almighty Johnsons, a New Zealand fantasy comedy/drama, on SyFy.

Yup, of my top ten shows on right now cable network and internet only, four are on the list above.

Honestly Working the Engels didnt even get over my very low bar. I gave it two eps but I think one was enough. I just thought it was really inoffensive, unclever and bland.

It maybe doesnt help that I recently just powered all of the zillion awards winning Modern Family with a few eps of Arrested Development over the last few weeks so my bar for comedy might be unusually high right now.

FTR I also did the last few eps of Enlisted recently, I fell out of touch with it after it got cancelled, and it is considerably better. To give an example of a recent comedy that isnt amazing but I really enjoyed.

just wanted to chime in and say that I enjoyed "welcome to Sweden", but then again I am a swede. Its just 20 minute episodes so you grind those 10 eps in one cashgame session if you go on the lower side of tables for the night.

Some bits were cringeworthy as they went "try hard" in some episodes, I guess it was for character development but its a show where you don't need to much char.dev. The stereotypes and cliché situations explain that to you perfectly. They should just stick with the dry awkward humor like "solsidan" straight up. All swedes know what show I'm talking about, its esp funny for us with kids or a house in the suburbs.