In the history of bad TV ideas, I’m not sure where to rank a comedy about eating disorders. It’s probably up there with the Star Wars Christmas Special or something. It’s just… so… awful.
Now, difficult subjects and comedy are not totally incompatible, but it takes a real genius to pull off that kind of thing– Life is Beautiful is a beautiful movie about life and love and laughter that just happens to be set during the holocaust. But let’s be honest here, Roberto Benignis don’t just grow on trees. They sprout wild like truffles and have to be hunted by trained pigs on leashes in the pristine Benigni fields of mountainous Italy.
Do they have comedic geniuses? Probably not. I mean, even the promotions are dumb, too: they’re advertising it in my gym. Next to the ad about how you’re really tough if you show up at the gym at 7AM with a hangover. (You’ll need our powerful deodorant then, because you’ll smell like the sewer you slept in. Or is that the sewer that is your bloodstream? I can’t tell which, they’re pretty close in consistency. How about a campaign for “You’ve got the shakes and puking, but at least you’re not sweating, because you’re a Mitchum Junkie!”)
Another way we can tell they’re not doing this out of a strange sense of genius: they’d be looking for new territory, and Mike Leigh did this back in 1990 in the film “Life is Sweet”. That movie, despite its description and pitch as a “comedy,” is one of the most depressing things I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some depressing movies. (Naturally, being a Mike Leigh movie, it’s about totally screwed up British people and is horribly depressing with a slight dose of stiff-upper-lip humor: her boyfriend is the sensitive one and she just uses him for sex… of course, they’re both still miserable.)
So far, they’ve made a pilot and one episode. Maybe they’ll get as far as three or four before they remove the feeding tubes (ha ha get it?) and let the brain-dead creature die.
Secretly Ironic 