CBS Mondays @ 8:30pm ET
"We Are Men" is a single-camera comedy about four single guys living in a short-term apartment complex who unexpectedly find camaraderie over their many missteps in love. Carter, the youngest and most recent addition to the group, moved in after being ditched at the altar mid-ceremony, and is now eager to re-enter the dating scene and get on with his life with some guidance from his "band of brothers": Frank Russo, a successful middle-aged clothing manufacturer and four-time divorcée who still fancies himself a ladies man; Gil Bartis, a small business owner who was caught having the world's worst affair; and Stuart Weber, a speedo-wearing OB/GYN who's hiding his assets until his second divorce is settled. Abby is Frank's charming and attractive daughter, who stands as the one positive remnant from his failed relationships. Armed with a hot tub, pool-side barbeque and plenty of questionable advice, these losers in the marriage department take Carter under their wing to impart their own brand of wisdom about the opposite sex.
"Man Up!". "Last Man Standing". "We Are Men". Every year there's at least one new sitcom with the word "man" in the title that seems to exist solely to be a misogynistic pushback against our increasingly progressive culture and the perceived "feminization" of the male gender. They're always outdated, they're usually offensive, and, perhaps worst of all, they're never remotely funny.
Tony Shalhoub ("Monk") won't stop talking about his preference for young Asian women. Jerry O'Connell ("Crossing Jordan") won't stop wearing speedos and being perpetually shirtless. Kal Penn ("Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle") won't stop being delusional about his relationship and, oddly, being perpetually unshirtless. Relative unknown Chris Smith ("Paranormal Activity 3") fares the best as our protagonist, Carter. He's got a straight-laced, slightly goofy sort of charm, and he doesn't give in as easily to the women-bashing...until the end, of course, which is seen as a huge victory for his character.
95% of the spoken dialogue is devoted to complaining about women. Any female actor unlucky enough to be cast in this show gets to portray one of two archetypes: desirable sex object or undesirable nag. Being a wife who wants a steady job for her husband and enjoys going to Farmers Markets is portrayed as being literally the worst thing a human could be, like, ever. Whereas being an unemployed thirty-something lounging around the pool with a beer and badmouthing women is obviously the best thing you can be.
The jokes are tired. The plot is predictable. (Tony Shalhoub's daughter knows everything about basketball, which is our protagonist's passion. I wonder who's going to be getting together soon?) Scenes are lifted wholesale from other, better comedies. The opening scene is quite literally a shot-for-shot remake of the opening scene of the dearly departed ABC comedy "Happy Endings": we follow a man running into a church to romantically interrupt a wedding and sweep his love off her feet...and then we stay with the man left at the altar and realize this is actually his story. The only difference is that in "Happy Endings" the man interrupting the wedding was on rollerblades, which is automatically way funnier.
I can't stress this enough: there is absolutely nothing worthwhile about this show. If you have any modicum of respect for women, you are unlikely to be able to make it through even ten minutes of this show. And even if you're happily a macho misogynist, there's nothing in "We Are Men" that you haven't seen a dozen times before. If you're going to so actively offend over half of the world's population, at least be original about it. So, you're men? Well, we're bored.
Fortunately for this show, CBS also debuted "Dads" this season, which is perhaps even more offensive, so there's a chance that "We Are Men" could slip relatively unscathed under critics' radars and manage to find enough of an audience to continue polluting the airwaves for years to come. Hey, "Two And A Half Men" just started its eleventh season, so stranger things have definitely happened.
Tweet us @Stagebuddy and let us know what you thought of "We Are Men"!
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiZo4AjTbQw[/youtube]
