About.com Rating
The Bottom Line
Big Lake is a cardboard sitcom with a few raunchy bits around its edges. Its story of a disgraced 20-something who must return to his small hometown and live with his parents is familiar and uninspiring, and despite a few talented supporting players, it’s bland and unfunny.
Pros
- Occasional oddball gags that pay off
- Solid comic performers Horatio Sanz and Chris Parnell
Cons
- Whiny, needling lead performance by Chris Gethard
- Boring sitcom premise
- Cheesy jokes and cheap production values
Description
- Premieres August 17, 2010, at 10 p.m. EST on Comedy Central
- Stars Chris Gethard, Horatio Sanz, Chris Parnell, Deborah Rush, Dylan Blue, James Rebhorn
- Created by Lew Morton
Guide Review - 'Big Lake' Premiere Episodes
Big Lake was originally developed as a vehicle for Napoleon Dynamite star Jon Heder, and as one-note and sometimes annoying as Heder can be, he has a certain affable charm, and would probably make for a good sitcom star (since his movie career hasn’t exactly panned out). But Heder dropped out of the show just two days before shooting was set to begin, and he was replaced by relative unknown Chris Gethard, a veteran of the Upright Citizens Brigade live improv comedy troupe. Gethard is a whiny, nebbishy presence, without any of Heder’s laid-back goofiness, and his portrayal of Josh Franklin, a disgraced banker who must move back in with his parents after losing all of his employer’s assets, is grating and unsympathetic.
Gethard is surrounded by some much more appealing performers, including Saturday Night Live veterans Horatio Sanz and Chris Parnell as his two scheming best friends, and veteran character actor James Rebhorn as his disapproving father. Sanz and Parnell get in occasional funny moments with their more offbeat gags, but mostly Big Lake is content to hit very familiar sitcom beats. The adult who must come back to his hometown and reconnect with his family and old friends is a pretty well-worn TV-show and movie premise, and Big Lake doesn’t really take it in any new directions. Despite being produced by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s Gary Sanchez Productions, Big Lake isn’t particularly daring or risqué, aside from the intermittent (bleeped) swearing.
Big Lake is also being produced under the newly popular cable sitcom model that involves ordering a massive number of episodes to be churned out quickly, which means that it looks rushed and cheap, and there’s little in the way of character development or story momentum. The show’s creators seem content to just tell the same kinds of stories over and over again, and while they have the potential for a weird, genre-busting show along the lines of the Fox cult classic Get a Life, at this point they seem content to settle for a generic sitcom with brief, mostly unfunny bursts of strangeness.
Disclosure: A review screener was provided by the network. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.
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