Wednesday, September 22, 2010

In Defense of "Running Wilde"

First, update: I will probably be attending the Hitrecord.org Fall Formal!! Yay! Expect pictures, video, amazing-ness, etc. to follow.

Now, last night was a big night in my house, TV-wise. Glee had its season premiere (which I really liked, by the way -- hopefully that means that Glee will be way better this season! SAM "BIG MOUTH" IS ONE OF MY NEW FAVORITE CHARACTERS OKAY) and Running Wilde had its series premiere.

I'd been hearing for a long time that Running Wilde was absolute dreck, so I was expecting the worse. It made me sad to have to do this, since Arrested Development is my favorite show ever and Will Arnett is amazing, but the opinions of others easily influence mine.

Thankfully, I was pleasantly surprised. Wilde was not nearly as awful as it was cracked up to be. The premise, that Steve Wilde is a rich jerkface trying to get his ex-girlfriend, who is an environmental jerkface, to love him again, is a little stupid and bland. But Will Arnett essentially plays GOB, which is always welcome, and Peter Serawhateverwiz was quite humorous as well. Keri Russell is extremely questionable casting, and I hated her character, but whatever, I'm not watching for her. Puddle's narration was irritating but I liked her and Steve together. I also enjoyed watching her eat leaves. :|

The thing is, people are still putting Running Wilde down. Their reasoning is largely that "it's not AD." Well, of course not! That circumstances that surrounded that show were so perfect, it's nearly impossible to replicate them. It's a different time that we live in now, and I don't know if AD Pt. 2 can ever exist. The closest comparison is Modern Family, but even that is completely different. Running Wilde might have GOB, Tobias, and Mitch Hurwitz, but I think comparisons should end there. It's hard to have to constantly live up to your first and absolute best creation, so we need to give poor Mitch a break. Imagine the pressure.

So I suggest we give Running Wilde a chance. It definitely was NOT perfect, as a lot of the material did fall flat, but it could get better.

I give Running Wilde #1.1 "Pilot" 3 extremely small, extremely expensive ponies out of 5.

2 comments:

  1. i'll have to watch it... or at least glimpse it between cracking my peanut shells and trying to catch up on the years of reading that i have strewn in piles around the house... i loved arrested development when you introduced me to it.. so i'll check this out without expectation and be totally in the moment -well mostly, when i watch.... and what is GOB -- good old boy... goofy overplayed boob... giraffe-like ornery blusterer? pls define terms for one from another generation of acronyms...

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  2. GOB = Will Arnett's character on Arrested Development. He was the ILLUUUUUUSIONist.

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