The TV Column

Mockumentary Comedians is seriously funny

The FX series The Comedians stars Josh Gad (left) and Billy Crystal. The comedy debuts at 9 p.m. today.
The FX series The Comedians stars Josh Gad (left) and Billy Crystal. The comedy debuts at 9 p.m. today.

The good news is that it's not full of shtick, as the commercials might indicate.

The bad news is the name might be a misnomer. The Comedians isn't really a comedy.

The new half-hour series starring Billy Crystal and Josh Gad debuts at 9 p.m. today on FX, immediately preceding the season premiere of Louie.

In The Comedians, Crystal and Gad play fictionalized versions of themselves. It shouldn't be much of a stretch.

Crystal, 67, portrays what he is in real life, a comedy legend. Longtime fans know him as Jodie Dallas in Soap, and from Saturday Night Live ("You look mahvelus!") and from such classic films as The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally ... and City Slickers.

Crystal has hosted the Academy Awards nine times.

Gad, 34, plays an edgier up-and-coming comic star. Gad is best known as the voice of Olaf in Frozen and for his work in the Broadway musical The Book of Mormon.

In the series, the old and the young have been reluctantly paired "in an unfiltered, behind-the-scenes look at a fictional late night sketch comedy show where egos and generations collide."

Not a comedy? Let's call the mockumentary style of The Comedians a light-hearted drama with plenty of humorous moments. Not side-splitting, slap-your-thighs, guffaw-inducing humor. It's certainly not the typical gag-driven sitcom with a punchline and laugh track every 10 seconds.

Stephnie Weir (MADtv) stars as Kristen Laybourne, the anxiety-riddled producer behind the fictitious Billy & Josh Show who frequently finds herself caught in the middle of Billy and Josh's arguments.

Matt Oberg (Harold in all those Macy's TV commercials) portrays the show's head writer, Mitch Reed, and Megan Ferguson (Love & Other Drugs) is Esme McCauley, a no-nonsense production assistant.

All together, the supporting crew spends most of their time managing the egos of their two stars and mending the comedic generation gap that keeps them from ever fully seeing eye to eye.

If while you're watching the pilot you see glimpses of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, there's a reason. Larry Charles (Curb Your Enthusiasm, Seinfeld), Matt Nix (Burn Notice), and Ben Wexler (Community, Arrested Development) are writers and executive producers along with Crystal.

The Comedians is smart, unconventional comedy with an edge. Billy's struggle to deal with the new humor after a 40-year career plays nicely off Josh's over-the-top enthusiasm.

Louie. As with The Comedians, the highly acclaimed comedy Louie is not so much a sitcom as a tidy little drama with a few jokes tossed in. The eight-episode Season 5 kicks off at 9:30 p.m. today on FX.

It's the observational humor of 47-year-old star Louis C.K. that makes the series special. Each episode mixes a scripted story with slices of Louis' stand-up routine.

Scully! Did you see the notice? Fox has made it official -- it's bringing back The X-Files with the original cast for a six-episode miniseries event.

That means David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson will reprise their roles as FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. Creator Chris Carter will head the revival.

Is the truth still out there? Can we go home again?

This really has a strong possibility of sucking eggs big time. I watched all 202 episodes from the debut in 1993 to the final curtain in 2002. I'll be holding my breath. (I didn't really care for either X-Files movie.)

Of course, as with most TV shows, I'm probably remembering it more fondly as time goes by. Many feel the last few seasons were nowhere near the quality of the beginning.

The mini-revival begins shooting this summer. No premiere date has been set.

Coach. Speaking of things returning, Parenthood star Craig T. Nelson will return as Coach Hayden Fox in a planned NBC sequel to the ABC '90s sitcom Coach. That series, which co-starred Jerry Van Dyke, Bill Fagerbakke and Shelley Fabares, ran for nine seasons from 1989-97.

The revival will pick up 18 years after we last saw the gang. Coach Fox, now retired, is called back to become assistant coach to his now-grown adopted son, who coaches at an Ivy league school in Pennsylvania that is just starting up a new team.

NBC has ordered 13 episodes and there is no debut date set.

Trivia: Nelson's middle initial stands for Theodore.

More Lies. Showtime has renewed House of Lies for a 10-episode fifth season to air next year.

The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email:

mstorey@arkansasonline.com

Weekend on 04/09/2015

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