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Review:
Brian Benben Show
Written
By Rick Ellis,
September 21st, 1998
The trouble
with this week is that are just too many tv shows premiering at
the same time. New programs, new episodes of your old favorites--
some shows are just bound to get lost in the flurry of hype. Granted,
this isn't always a tragedy. If no one watches Buddy Faro
the world will survive. The world may even be better for the failure.
But sometimes a good show has trouble building some momentum.
The Brian
Benben Show debuted tonight, and it couldn't be airing in a
worse timeslot. In theory, it should be a cushy spot. It's part
of CBS's long-running Monday night lineup of sitcoms, and it's following
the popular Ray Romano sitcom, Everybody Loves Raymond. Unfortunately,
it's airing opposite Ally McBeal, Monday Night Football,
the constantly-hyped Will and Grace and the WB's soap-fest
Hyperion Bay. So I have a feeling this may end up canceled
before anyone even notices that it's on the air.
Which would
be a shame, because this is a pretty funny show. Brian Benben was
the star of HBO's Dream On, but since then he's starred in
a couple of pilots that didn't sell, attempting to find the right
project for him. He has a Mark Harmon breezy charm to him, and he
needs a concept that allows him to be witty, a little sexy and a
little beaten down. In the Brian Benben Show, he plays--go
figure-- Brian Benben, a Los Angeles television anchor who has worked
himself up to the position from mailboy. He's well-liked, funny
and good at what he does. And he's now out of a job.
Station manager
Beverly Shippel (Susan Blommaert) replaces the current anchor team
with Ken and Barbie clones who get the job because they tested well
with audiences. "When they're asked, don't viewers consider me the
most trusted anchor on television?," asks Benben. "Yes," Shippel
explains. "But we changed the question. It's now 'Who would rather
have sex with?'" Benben is out of a job, replaced by Chad Rockwell
(Charles Esten), a man whose entire previous on-air experience consists
of two years as a VJ on VH1. He's arrogant, and contemptious of
Benben, telling him that all it takes to do his job is look sincere
and read the teleprompter.
Benben is back
on the air the next night, however, after the station's human-interest
reporter is killed by an gorilla in heat. But while Benben is working
again, he's taking grief from the new anchors and decides to get
even by sabotaging the teleprompter. That leads to a funny sequence
where the new anchors begin reading all sorts of odd sentences and
jokes.
But the prank
backfires on Benben when Rockwell throws the camera to Benben, who's
at a local nursing home interviewing L.A.'s oldest woman. She and
her sister proceed to swear at the camera and flash the audience.
Next week Benben
will find himself being forced to sell his expensive dream house
now that he's lost his anchor salary. Unless, of course, he can
bring himself to accept one of the most demeaning examples of celebrity
endorsing that you can imagine.
The show attempts
to spoof the vapid local tv station news scene, and already does
a more effective job than the somewhat similiar Al Franken series
Lateline. Benben does a nice job of playing the casual, confident
reporter role. And he's surrounded by a steady cast of newsroom
cronies, including sports reporter Billy Hernandez (Luis Antonio
Ramos), and weather guy Kevin LaRue (Wendell Pierce). The show isn't
written as cleanly as it need to be, but there are a lot of nice
moments, and I can't help think that, given a chance, the show could
find an audience.
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