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| The cast of Great News |
When Great News hit the Netflix machine a couple of weeks ago my enthusiasm was akin to a six year-old opening up an Easy Bake Oven on Christmas morning. Apparently it's 1965 in my fantasies.... But such is my love for Tracey Wigfield’s gem. And just when I thought NBC was seeing the light (after all, they greenlit Great News and rescued Brooklyn Nine-Nine) they cancelled the show after just two too short seasons. Luckily it’s not actually 1965, so when a show is cancelled it lives on in our Netflix-beating hearts.
Great News follows Katie, a producer at cable news show The Breakdown, and her mother Carol. Oh, and Carol just happens to be a new intern at the station. Great News has undertones of 30 Rock and The Mindy Project – Wigfield’s pedigree includes writing gigs on both – but the addition of a meddling mom to the workplace makes Great News a hilarious mash up of a family sitcom and a workplace comedy.
Katie and Carol are the dictionary definition of a helicopter parenting relationship and, much to Katie’s chagrin, are actually alot alike. Katie, played by Briga Heelan, tries her best not to do as her mother does or fall for her subtle manipulation but Carol is a force Katie cannot defeat. And then there’s Carol, portrayed by comic genius Andrea Martin, who is my new favorite sitcom character ever. How can you not love a character who glances around the room to come up with a spy name and lands on Desk Crotch? Carol talks a mile a minute, has her best friend on speaker all day long so they can be together even when Carol is at work and is so into extreme couponing that she has to use the roof at work to store her stockpile of Weenus razors (not a typo) that she got for -$40. Martin can do it all, from verbal barbs to physical comedy, Martin is Carol Wendelson.
As if the Katie/Carol relationship were not hilarious enough, enter John Michael Higgins as a blowhard anchor Chuck Pierce, Nicole Richie as Chuck’s millennial co-anchor Portia Scott-Griffith and Adam Campbell as beleaguered executive producer Greg. Chuck, Portia, Greg and the rest of the ensemble cast (highlights include Horatio Sanz as an editor and Wigfield herself as a meteorologist) orbit around the absurdity that is Katie and Carol and interject their own brand of irrationality into the mix.
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| Heelan and Martin |
What could be better than the amazing cast? The writing. Always whip smart and quick as a bunny, the punch lines fly fast and land beautifully. The writers have crafted some of the smartest and most perfectly absurd storylines and dialogue to have ever graced network television. Instead of spending time writing about the writing, I will let it speak for itself: “Sorry, I’m not great with emotions. Growing up, my governess was an actual teapot.” How about this one: “Did you know that women get paid less than men? How is that fair? Ahh…periods.” And finally, “Look at them. Just like Sam and Diane. From Cheers, the classic 80s alcoholism PSA?” Pure genius.
This could easily turn into a recap of every episode because there are laugh out loud moments in all of them, but watching the show will be a bigger payoff than reading about is so stop reading this and tell your Alexa or your Google Home lady to turn on Great News.
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