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'My Name is Earl': That's so not hot
Well, we've waited long enough, My Name is Earl returned from its strike-enforced hiatus with an hour long episode tonight featuring none other than Paris Hilton. If you think about it, she's actually a pretty good fit for the show because she seems just about as intelligent as Randy.
Before we got to witness her appearance, we started off with good old Jeff Zucker promoting NBC.com and Esurance via a recap of what happened after Earl left jail. I thought of Zucker's bit kind of like a warm-up act, it was okay, but not really funny, and certainly would make everything that came after seem that much better (which it did).
When the show did start, Earl was still unconscious on the street lying next to Billie. In order to avoid the physical pain he was feeling, his subconscious placed him in a television sitcom version of his own life, one in which his list was finished and he was married to Billie. The rest of the show would have Earl's imagination reinterpreting stuff from the real world into his television dream. It was a distinctly uninspired idea and one I'm sure I've seen before, many, many times.
Back in the real world, the police and paramedics had found Earl, and soon Randy happened along too. Upon seeing that the paramedics were going to take Billie to the hospital before his brother, Randy sprang into action. He put Earl into the ambulance himself and then stole the vehicle. Randy, not being the brightest person, had no idea where the hospital was, but in a serendipitous turn of events he ran into Joy, Darnell, and Catalina who not only were able to direct Randy to the hospital but to defibrillate Earl's head too (Darnell got hit once with the paddles too, but he enjoyed the buzz).
It wasn't all wine and roses though, Catalina insisted that if Earl died in a closed area his soul would attach to those with him. Consequently, she opened the backdoor and Earl and Joy (who was on top of him to give him two purple-nurples and chest compressions) ended up sliding out the back on the gurney. Joy was able to get off the gurney, but Earl ended up getting himself (while still unconscious) attached to the front of a truck.
From there things got weird, the truck driver was a crazy woman who had decided that she and Earl had exchanged vows despite his being unconscious. The gang was able to get Earl away from her and off to the hospital, but not before she got off a shotgun shot which ended up landing on Earl's buttocks because Randy was using his brother as a human shield.
So, that was where the first half hour ended, and I don't know about you, but I thought it all felt sort of rushed, didn't it? Nothing seemed really thought out. The scenes jumped from one to the next in a really haphazard manner and the funny jokes were few and far between.
But, back to our story… with Earl in a coma, the gang tried to wake him by exposing him to different things he liked when conscious. It didn't work, even Joy's boobs failed to wake him. It was Catalina reading a tabloid magazine however that spawned the Paris Hilton appearance. The various stimuli the gang tried on Earl affected his television fantasy existence, and the mention of Paris Hilton by Catalina put the heiress squarely into Earl's dream. She stood there cooking bacon and repeatedly stating "that's hot."
I understand that she was making fun of her own persona, but, frankly, I don't think she's believable playing herself. It wasn't quite over the top enough to convince me that she wasn't completely serious in thinking that various things were in fact "hot."
Paris's first scene left me praying to God that there wouldn't be a second and as I was doing that, Randy was also praying to God (who may have been answering him), but he was praying for Earl to get better. Whether or not God was speaking to him, Randy did come up with a plan – going to a child faith healer named Gerald who had helped them out previously. After convincing the kid that Joy wasn't evil (as he was led to believe after their past dealings), the little faith healer agreed to help. However, it turned out that he didn't have the "power" at all, his dad had just been conning everyone in order to make some money, and the kid couldn't do a darn thing for Earl.
In the end it was Randy that saved Earl by continuing Earl's work on the list (with small things like turning out the lights to save electricity). Earl isn't out of the woods yet, but he's not dying anymore and maybe if Randy crosses a few more things off the list next week Earl will wake up.
All I know is that I hope Earl does wake up soon because Paris Hilton popped up again at the end of the episode and I just don't think I can take much more of her on my television.
Outside of Paris, I didn't think the episode was bad, but it wasn't really that funny either, even with Zucker as the warm-up. Am I wrong? Did you just love the episode and everything about it, including Paris?
Some good quotes from tonight:
- At the hospital, when the Hindu doctor was asked for good news about Earl he responded – "He has a fantastic mustache, and praise be to Ganesh it was unharmed. Other than that, all we can do is pray. I'll bet you wish you had more than one god now, eh?"
- Joy, on putting an unconscious Earl's hand on her breasts – "Squeeze baby, you're a vegetable, not a fruit."
As for me, I'm the guy that runs The TV and Film Guy's Reviews.
Paris Hilton was soooooooo annoying and a total momentum killer. And last night's episode didn't have a lot of momentum to spare. I agree not the best episode, but not the worst either. Earl's doctor was funny, though.
| Apr 4, 2008 5:28:28 AM | #I normally enjoy Earl, but last night's episode was the unfunniest hour of telelvision ever. The writing was defitintely not up to par.
moby | Apr 4, 2008 5:37:25 AM | #As a fan from the beginning of the show, I was surprised to find myself turning it off after fifteen minutes. I just couldn't take a whole hour of that nonsense. I thankfully missed Paris, but don't like seeing these characters turn into charicatures. Two thumbs down.
Nonnie Muss | Apr 4, 2008 5:46:20 AM | #I thought there were a lot of good lines, especially from Joy.
It did seem like they did a double-take on Earl's past in a way. Previously, they made it appear that his father was a good man dealing with helion sons. Here they showed Earl's father and mother fighting and implied he had a drinking problem. The only purpose to that seemed to be to set up the sit-com dreamworld.
I last remember the coma-dream world idea being used in The Drew Carey Show.
Some of my fav lines:
Earl voice-over:
"As far as I knew, Randy wasn't a religious person - except for the Great Pumpkin"
Randy's call out to God:
"Take me instead.. or my weight in squirrels"
The bike-cop after the ambulance passes him again:
"Nobody's trying to catch that thing. Is cop-on-a-bike all we got?"
Also the sequence where Joy asks to see a real doctor, a jewish one and the doctor says we are the new jews, Darnell says I thought that was the Koreans. The doctor replies, "They wish".
sac | Apr 4, 2008 5:56:16 AM | #Oh and one other Randy comment when first seeing Earl on the ground, "Waky, Waky, if your necks not braky"
sac | Apr 4, 2008 5:58:33 AM | #this show keeps getting weaker and weaker, and less and less funny as time goes on. Time to put it to pasture.
Thoren | Apr 4, 2008 6:44:33 AM | #as it was, the tv dream was an ok--if slightly cliched--send-up of traditional family sitcoms. it could've been executed a bit better--gone a little wackier like with claymation/animation (which they used before).
and paris was entirely unnecessary.
i thought the god's little finger part was better, esp earl's own role in the charade. the show is ultimately the best when these ne'er-do-wells band together and try to address things on the list in their own goofy and dysfunctional ways.
nitish | Apr 4, 2008 6:45:16 AM | #Take away Paris and the dream tv sitcom scenes and it was really a pretty good episode. When they play up the strange characters in Camden County is when the show is at its best. Oh, and more Joy. She's a hoot.
Lindlee | Apr 4, 2008 7:26:02 AM | #
Ugh, I gave up on this show fairly recently, I think they made a huge mistake in downplaying the list, which to me made the show unique. And while putting Earl in prison was funny at first, they spent way too much time on it.
Anyway, there was nothing else on last night, and I gave it another try. I'm so not a fan of Paris Hilton, so that didn't help. But as you elaborated on in your review, the show is all over the place. I still think it has its moments. I loved the part where the gang is singing "Burning for You" at a coma-stricken Earl.
I'm just sad, because the creative team had to fix something that wasn't broken. The first season was pure comic genius, IMO. And it was a simple formula. A bad man wants to change his ways, and makes a list. Every week, he picks one thing from that list and trys to make it right. Craziness and laughs ensue, and at the end, it works out and he crosses it off his list. It worked. So why did they feel the need to take the list away as the show's cornerstone and have episodes about Joy, or Catalina, or Darnell? Or Earl being in prison?
Jeff | Apr 4, 2008 7:47:52 AM | #Other than a few funny lines from the main characters, I thought the episode was just weird and unfunny. My husband fell asleep right before muttering, Earl has just gone so over the top, and I started to just feel uncomfortable at the awkwardness of it all. Finally, I wished that I had watched the Office repeats rather than Earl (which we had taped and then watched at 9:00).
Sue | Apr 4, 2008 7:47:54 AM | #I guess I'm one of the few that enjoyed this episode. The trucker lady (her name escapes me, but from the 40-Year Old Virgin) was hilarious, especially the delivery of her lines. The dream sequences were not as funny as they should have been, but overall I liked the hour.
Ron | Apr 4, 2008 9:45:42 AM | #Paris Hilton=LAME-O
Dream Sequence=unfunny
I thought, however, that the hour as a whole was sweet. I loved watching the troops gather around and pull for Earl in the hospital. Because they're always so horrible, it's easy to forget they all love each other, mostly in very dysfunctional ways. And Jamie Pressley is the funniest bitch on TV right now. Not even close to my favorite of Earl, but not the worst of the lot either.
| Apr 4, 2008 11:54:06 AM | #Paris Hilton=LAME-O
Dream Sequence=unfunny
I thought, however, that the hour as a whole was sweet. I loved watching the troops gather around and pull for Earl in the hospital. Because they're always so horrible, it's easy to forget they all love each other, mostly in very dysfunctional ways. And Jamie Pressley is the funniest bitch on TV right now. Not even close to my favorite of Earl, but not the worst of the lot either.
Michael | Apr 4, 2008 11:54:16 AM | #I loved the first season of this show, but it hasn't been funny for awhile. I watched the first 20 minutes and turned it off.
Pat | Apr 4, 2008 12:19:01 PM | #This whole season I have been halfheartedly watching the show, and I gave it 4 stars in my initial review. I agree with a lot of the posters that getting away from the list was a bad move. I was downright bored most of last night. I agree that God's Little Finger was the highlight, and the Paris and TV sitcom dream sequences were the lowlights.
Wendy | Apr 4, 2008 1:37:37 PM | #I thought the first 20 minutes were the worst part, so it's too bad it inspired a couple of you to turn it off. It did get better. It was so annoying watching poor Earl being further injured by such stupidity. Once the truck driver found Earl, it all picked up, though. She was funny and so was Joy's reaction to her.
Putting the gang into a bland 1960s sitcom with bad jokes was not the way to get laughs, I agree, and Paris only made it worse.
But there were a lot of good laughs after that awful beginning - and *outside* of the retro sitcom.
Let's just hope the writers were a little rusty after the strike and better things are coming.
Janet | Apr 4, 2008 5:01:28 PM | #Paris just plain sucks!
Jimmy | Apr 4, 2008 8:48:35 PM | #Really, who would have thought Britney would have had the superior guest shot (over Paris) this past week.
I thought Jeff Zucker's opening was a great idea, and should be done for each returning show. Clearly, all are suffering from viewer disconnect after the strike.
I liked the episode, mainly for the one-liners. But please, get Earl awake and back to his list ASAP.
Fred | Apr 5, 2008 10:12:23 AM | #There really were alot of good lines in this episode.
But most of the episode was pretty "meh." I was disappointed by the uninspired lyrics to the sitcom theme song and by Paris Hilton (Seriously? Saying "That's hot" is all that the writers could think of for her to do?). I thought Earl falling out of the ambulance was over-the-top ridiculous and the lady trucker was over-the-top weird.
Anyway, Earl always has been my least fav of the 4 NBC comedies. I'm excited for next week. I wonder if Zucker will introduce any of the others. Or maybe Ben Silverman will introduce The Office. I kinda like the intro especially when Zucker referred to call-backs as "getting paid twice for writing the same joke."
Billiam | Apr 5, 2008 1:04:37 PM | #I despise that Hilton girl. I love the show My name is Earl, but she really ruined it, ENOUGH of this girl. Very untalented, it's quite pathetic.............
NBC, please continue the show but without Hiltons presence.
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