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Marry Me - General Discussion


Meredith Quill
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This show to me is definitely still finding itself. It's struggling between a Happy-Endings ensemble piece, a romantic comedy about Annie and Jake, and the Casey Wilson Comedy Revue. I realize that Jake is the straight man to wacky Annie, but I feel he is less developed than Gil at this point and that's a little sad.

 

I still like it and there are moments of brilliance. I liked the bottle episode this week. I felt bad for the British guy but it was funny when he said they were awful people and Kay basically agreed and said that they were. Too bad he couldn't grab a washcloth to clean himself up before they went downstairs.

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in HE Penny ends up tutoring a crazy Asian lady on dating. She ends up stalking Max at the end of the episode, but he tells her she's crazy, he loves it and they should hang out.

 

That was Nicole, who Max tried to nickname Nickel because it was "like 5 times better than Penny". But not the same actress, although Nickel (Kulap Vilaysack) should have been the one they cast instead. Unless there was another time Max was obsessed with a Penny-like Asian chick.

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I had a feeling they would try to pair up Gil and Dennah sometime.  Surprised they are starting it so early.

 

It was only in the heat of the moment. Once the crisis was over, she went back to the handsome British guy, so unless there's another crisis, the hot blonde will not be hooking up with the scruffy fat guy.

 

From the review of the episode:

 

After the insane success of Friends, creators David Crane and Marta Kauffman followed it up with...Veronica's Closet. Friends was a show about attractive young people who'd formed a surrogate urban family: what about that would have made anyone think its creators' next show should be a workplace comedy with, basically, a drag queen at its center?

 

 

I just think more TV showrunners should use their next at-bats to revive what worked the last time around.

 

Why? To me that implies a lack of creativity. I didn't realize (or remember) that the creators of "Friends" had also created "Veronica's Closet," but at least they took a creative chance in doing something new. Personally, I enjoyed "Veronica's Closet" when it was on. Also, why call Kirstie Alley a drag queen? Because she was fat at that point and the character had a "large than life" personality? 

 

This "Marry Me" is just week-old congealed leftovers that have started to turn. With "Happy Endings," I never got the idea that these were just "types" trying to be funny. With "Marry Me," that's all I get: fat guy, blonde bimbo, black lesbian, engaged couple.

 

The one thing I did like about this episode was that every bad thing that happened on their anniversary was the result of the actions of one of their friends.

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NBC orders more episodes - http://variety.com/2014/tv/news/nbc-orders-more-marry-me-1201349004/

 

Bringing the total season to 18 episodes. Thats probably the best we can hope for on a channel like NBC who never seems to air a full season of any new comedies anymore. At least they'll get about a whole season to prove if the show is worth keeping around or not. My biggest fear was that the show would be axed after like 8 episodes before we ever would've been able to tell if the show would be able to grow into something great or not. I mean, imagine if Happy Endings would've ended after it's so-so short first season.

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That was the character, boogieburns. Your memory is better than mine! Even though I saw it recently, every time they showed Fantasia's face it was so distorted with emotion I couldn't tell if she was the same actress who played Nicole. They should have used the same actress. And they should also cast some Asian women who aren't crazy. Maybe Kulap Vilasack will turn up somewhere else on Marry Me.

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I regularly listen to the podcast Kulap Vilaysack co-hosts (Who Charted) and she was just endorsing "Marry Me" a few weeks ago. She mentions Casey a lot on the podcast actually, infact I kinda rememeber Kulap mentioning she was one of the bridesmaids at Casey's wedding, so I wouldn't be surprised to see her pop up on this show as well since shes good friends with Casey and David.

 

fun fact: Kulap is the wife of Scott Aukerman, host of Comedy Bang Bang.

Edited by Batt Mastersly
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That was a common problem on Happy Endings too. Theres always some great easy to miss jokes in those rapid-fire parts of the show, but I'm glad they cut back on that a bit more on this show and it's only like that some of the time here. By season three of HE, when the entire show became like that, it got hard to follow at times with the dialouge moving so fast. I always feel like I need to rewatch this and Happy Endings a second time with the captions to catch up on everything I missed the first time.

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I feel like the writers are still "feeling out" all the characters other than Annie (who is a copy-paste of Penny from HE, but she's still the funniest part of Marry Me, so that's fine). <br /><br />Jake usually gets some funny lines ("sorry I'm late, traffic was a crazy bitch" from this episode), but the "straight man" role is an inexcusable waste for a great comedic actor like Ken Marino. <br /><br />Marry Me feels like the watered-down, broad appeal version of Happy Endings that Caspe knew he'd have an easier job selling to networks. Which still makes it better than a lot of other sitcoms, but the potential is there for it to be a lot better.

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The actor who plays Gil was in an episode of Happy Endings. I am watching reruns on Logo today, and this character stole Dave's truck then sold sandwiches out of it. I'm not sure if this guy has a name on HE, but he is playing it just like he plays Gil. The episode is from Season 3, "The Incident."

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Also funny enough, Ken Marino (Jake) and Sarah Wright (Dennah) appear in the same episode of Happy Endings. You probably remember Ken as Rick Rickman, but you probably might not remember Sarah Wright. She was the lead actress in the romcom that Alex and Brad were watching in the theater.

 

I also realized not too long ago Wright also played Jerry's daughter on Parks & Rec, that Rob Lowe's character dated at one point.

 

Oh yeah, I kinda remember Gemberling on Happy Endings too. Something with him cooking in Dave's truck with no pants on or something, and that he "made love to the meat" before he cooked it! (gross!)

Edited by Batt Mastersly
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Dennah (?) and Gil are just not working for me. Dennah seems like a bland 90s throwback supporting sitcom character (I can see her on Mad About You, Caroline in the City, etc.). And I keep thinking Gil is gay so get confused when there are storylines involving him and women.

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The Gil character is still an unfunny Zach Galifianakis

 

 

Totally.  Although the unfunny in front of "Zack Galifianakis" is redundant.   

 

I'm still enjoying this show, but as others have expressed, I'm not loooovvving it the way I loved HE.  But it's only 4 episodes in.  I'm totally giving it more time to find its groove.

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Well ......

 

When a Fall premiere rookie show gets fewer than the full "back 9" episode order to make a complete season of 22 episodes, it's not "still alive", it's dead and just filling space. Marry Me received an order for just 5 extra episodes. It's likely to be canceled.

 

 

 

Then again, .....

 

 

Marry Me was given a partial backorder of only 5 episodes. While the size may trigger red flags, it is the scheduling that is critical. Freshman shows have received less than 22 episodes and survived (e.g. Revolution) if they end in or near May sweeps; any end date before that is virtually a death sentence.
Or to summarize, if Marry Me's extra episodes are scheduled after The Voice for the rest of the season, the show still has a (weak) pulse. If those episodes are just filling time until The Voice comes back with a new lead-out, Marry Me is dead.

 

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2014/11/11/nbc-predictions-marry-me-is-likely-to-be-canceled/324188/

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TVBTN seems to be mostly basing this on them being getting a 18 episode order and not a full 22. But does NBC really give any comedies 22 season orders much these days? It seems like 13 episode (or less) seasons seems to be the norm for NBC comedies these days.

 

But they're probably right that its gonna depend on how it airs in the 2015 half that determines if NBC's already decided their done with the show. If they burn through all the episodes in Jan&Feb by the time the Voice returns, then yeah... thats probably not a good sign.

Edited by Batt Mastersly
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This show is growing on me. This episode had two of my most hated TV and movie cliches: 1) an air duct serving a small basement storage room is not going to be anywhere near big enough to fit a human inside and 2) if you pull a fire alarm pull station it won't set off the sprinkler system.  But even with those I still found it funny so they must be doing something right.

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NBC has nothing left to air if they cancel this show. Their only sitcom would be About A Boy. Midseason they have Parks returning, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. But that's it! They might want to not pull the trigger anytime soon.

 

I don't think they're talking about yanking it off the air. Just that there won't be a 2nd season.

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David Caspe explains what's up with Marry Me's excessive bleeping

 

NBC's new sitcom "Marry Me" was preempted for a special episode of "The Voice" (Nov. 11), but fans don't need to fret. When the show returns with (almost) a full season order Nov. 18, viewers will get plenty more of Annie (Casey Wilson), Jake (Ken Marino) and their friends -- all be it this time with a little less censorship.

 

"Marry Me" creator David Caspe tells Zap2it he's heard some criticism for the comedy's heavy use of bleeps and blurs to cover up inappropriate language and body part exposure (especially in the Halloween episode "Scary Me"). He says the use of words that need to be censored mostly been accidental.

 

Though Caspe agrees the bleeps might be "a little too much" at times, he defends it by saying, "[the censorship is] not really anything we think about. We write the scripts and where you would naturally say 'f***' or 's***' we just write it in. We aren't trying to be like, 'Oh it would be so funny if they said s*** right here.' It just happens."

 

In the case of the most blatantly censored episode to air, "Scary Me," Caspe says at least one bleep wasn't supposed to make the final cut, but the writers weren't aware they couldn't use a certain swear word on TV.

 

"The very first bleep is Annie says it was a 'God d*** mess,' so we had to bleep 'God d***.' We just did not know that ... it just slipped past us. That one was not even planned to be bleeped, but then we had to do it which added another bleep to an episode that already had several," he admits. "I just didn't realize 'God d***' was a swear word anymore, but it is."

 

The writer says the bleeps and blurs aren't something the writers are consciously doing as part of the show's style, but fans may have to wait a while to see them reduced.

 

"We do notice it seems a little weird when there are too many. Going forward we are going to try to pull back on it, but we have already shot 10 episodes, so those episodes might have that stuff," Caspe says.

 

He explains even though the writing team is aware the in-your-face type of censorship on network TV isn't that popular with viewers, there are no promises it will be done away with entirely. "It's like pick your poison at a certain point," he says. "Is it better to bleep it and have it be something someone would actually say, or put in a word that isn't natural?"

 

http://www.zap2it.com/blogs/marry_me_david_caspe_promises_bleeps_censorship_nbc_casey_wilson_ken_marino-2014-11

Edited by Batt Mastersly
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Congrats! Casey Wilson and David Caspe expecting first child in spring 2015

http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-moms/news/casey-wilson-pregnant-expecting-first-child-with-husband-david-caspe-20141311

 

Perhaps that could explain why they they gave it 18 instead of a full 22 episode season? (Yeah I know, doubtful... but it made me think of that shortened season of P&R when Amy was preggers)

Edited by Batt Mastersly
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Perhaps that could explain why they they gave it 18 instead of a full 22 episode season? (Yeah I know, doubtful... but it made me think of that shortened season of P&R when Amy was preggers)

 

Season 3 wasn't shortened because Amy was pregnant.

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It wasnt? I thought I remembered something up with delaying the filming for a few months after Amy's pregnancy. Didn't the season start later than usual or something?

 

In other news it looks like they've cast Annie's biological mom in a future episode:

http://www.etonline.com/tv/153896_exclusive_marry_me_adds_my_big_fat_greek_weddings_nia_vardalo_as_casey_wilsons_mom/

I think I like this choice even more than I did Megan Mullally on Happy Endings.

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It wasnt? I thought I remembered something up with delaying the filming for a few months after Amy's pregnancy. Didn't the season start later than usual or something?

 

 

They had actually shot the first six episodes of Season 3 immediately after wrapping up Season 2, just so they would be able to make it to air in September. NBC pushed Parks to a midseason replacement, in order to launch "Outsourced" on Thursday nights.

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Annie decides she would like to host Thanksgiving dinner for the first time as a newly-engaged couple but Myrna, Jake’s mom, has always hosted. While Myrna appears to be supportive of the change of plans, Annie quickly realizes that she is engaged in a complicated chess match over who will be the most important woman in Jake’s life. Meanwhile, Gil goes in search of cheese to bring to the Thanksgiving dinner and discovers that he has a knack for fine cheese tasting. His newfound talents lead him to an underground world of exquisite and unique cheeses.

 

 

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I thought I was just about done with this show, but there were a couple of things I liked.

 

The biggest laugh for me was when we think we're seeing Annie taking a beautiful turkey out of the oven, but it turns out that she and Jake are watching a demo online.

 

I also liked the visual of everyone sitting around the tiny table.

 

The Middle recently had an ep where Frankie bought a beautiful table online, but it turned out to be doll furniture. Also, the bit with Gil talking with the cheese guy at the counter reminded me of a Bob's Burgers ep where the butcher counter guy is gay. Nicely, however, Bob doesn't react homophobically.

 

I don't really like any of the characters. That's a big minus for me.

Edited by peeayebee
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I don't really like any of the characters. That's a big minus for me.

 

My biggest complaint right now is that all the supporting characters need to be worked out, most of them aren't too interesting yet.

 

But it's only 5 episodes in, they have a lot of time to work on them. I think Kay shows a lot of promise, they need to delevop her more beyond the character who just says sarcastic one-liners.

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But it's only 5 episodes in, they have a lot of time to work on them.

 

Do they, though? A bunch of new sitcoms have already been cancelled, and Zap2It has this show in the "more likely to be cancelled than renewed" category. Not that they're the ultimate say or anything, but ratings aren't great. 

 

It still reminds me very much of Happy Endings but with a weaker cast, like it's a spin-off with Penny and her fiance. Gil, Dennah and Kay really are kind of ill-defined supporting characters. Love JoBeth Williams and the two dads, but the show is kind of skating by on quirkiness and that never spelled success for Happy Endings either. I think maybe Annie and Jake are a little too unrelatable. 

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Gil is the poor person's Max Blum, Dennah is kind of the poor person's Alex Kerkovich. Kay is barely there, unfortunately.

 

I liked it, but it wasn't as formally interesting as the curse episode.  The mother-in-law plot felt pretty by-the-numbers and Gil's B plot started out really solid but ended with a whimper, in that the underground "speakcheesy" was a lot funnier for me than the human cheese.

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I tried, but I didn't even watch the whole episode, so I'm out. It's not that this show is bad, it's just that it's not very good.

 

It seems like the low fat, low sodium, gluten free version of Happy Endings. I want to like it, but it isn't quite good.

 

That sums it up.

 

The only way I'd come back is if Alex and Dave or Brad and Jane or Max started popping up randomly, and we widen to reveal that Penny's been in a coma after her head injury and "Marry Me" was all an illusion in her head. Then "Happy Endings" would continue. Maybe Ken Marino would be her doctor, so he could stay on the show. 

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I dunno, it seems kind of unfair to not like the show because it's not Happy Endings. Obviously, it's hard not to compare the shows but it seems like it's impossible to enjoy if you go in with the mindset of "This character would be better if it was Adam Pally or Elisha Cuthbert playing them", which again is hard not to since characters like Gil seem a little bit like a "poor mans Max" at times.

 

I dunno, I still say it's too early to completely write it off after 5 episodes, very few shows are super great right out of the gate. The Office (US), Parks & Rec, Happy Endings all took quite some time to become great, really it wasn't until their second seasons. The only problem here is if the show makes it long enough to get really good. To me it seems like they have all the pieces there to make a really great show, right now I actually think it's just "pretty good" (I guess I'm enjoying it more than most of the people on prev.tv) but it just needs some work on developing the characters more and making us care about or know who these people actually are before it could become a really good show.

 

It's hard for new shows on network tv sometimes to flesh out season long stories, especially when they never know how many episodes they're gonna get until mid-way through the season or if the orders get reduced. I know writers of these shows have often said how thats frustrating when starting a new show.

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It's true that often it takes a while for a show to find itself, but since there is so much on TV, it's getting harder to stick with a show that doesn't grab you soon enough. For myself, I wasn't a Happy Endings watcher -- I saw a couple eps -- and I'm having trouble getting into this show.

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I dunno, it seems kind of unfair to not like the show because it's not Happy Endings. Obviously, it's hard not to compare the shows but it seems like it's impossible to enjoy if you go in with the mindset of "This character would be better if it was Adam Pally or Elisha Cuthbert playing them", which again is hard not to since characters like Gil seem a little bit like a "poor mans Max" at times.

 

I don't judge the show because it's not "Happy Endings," I judge it because it's not very good. As you pointed out yourself, Gil is basically Max, but straight. (Frankly, if the character was gay, I'd love to see him hook up with Max.)

 

It's impossible not to compare the two shows, because the creator basically ripped off himself. He set it in the same universe as "Happy Endings," and he's already crossed-over a character. He's the one who created "Happy Endings Light." 

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Yeah it feels like they are trying to not make it Happy Endings but still keep veering into that territory and that makes this show uneven for me. I like fun supporting characters but this show is about Annie and Jake. Make their relationship the sole focus and have the supporting characters be truly supporting (with some development of course). The ensemble part is what makes it too similar to me.

As far as this episode goes it wasn't too bad. I like JoBeth Williams as the mom and glad they aren't making her a harpy who hates Annie. And the makeup/fake grey on Dan Buckitinsky's looks bad to me (at least I think it's fake) and distracts me. I do like the dads though in small doses.

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I don't really get the Gil hate either, I think John Gemberlings a really funny guy (love him on Broad City and his regular appearances on the improv4humans podcast) and he plays a pathetic sadsack loser really well, I dunno I think he pulls off that "annoying but at the same time oddly loveable" thing kinda well in everything I've seen him in.

 

I think it's a combination of two things:

 

1. People mad Adam Pally's not playing the role, because as some have pointed out, he's basically the "Max Blum" of this show if you're gonna compare it to Happy Endings.

2. People are sick of the trend of "fat, bearded best friends" on every other sitcom this season.

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After a meeting with Annie and their wedding officiant Dawn, Jake decides he should get to know Annie’s dads better. When Jake and Kevin 1 bond over their love of motorcycles, however, it leads to some pretty serious family trouble, particularly with Kevin 2. Meanwhile, Gil is very excited about his booth at the annual Flemish Pride Parade and enlists Annie to help him prepare a special musical production.

 

 

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