Review: Great Comedy Tonight - And Anger ManagementReported by SeattlePI.com on Thursday, 28 June 2012 (on June 28, 2012)
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Review: Great Comedy Tonight - And Anger Management
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Copyright 2012 Seattle Post-Intelligencer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Published 06:57 a.m., Thursday, June 28, 2012
Self-consciously smarmy as it winks and leers at Sheen's bad-boy reputation - the opening gag is a self-reflective groaner that stops just before its "winning" punchline - Anger (related to the Adam Sandler movie in name only) finds Sheen once again playing a not-very-sorry Charlie, a former athlete and divorced dad with anger issues who's trying to redeem himself as an anger therapist counseling wacky groups at home and in prison. [...] wouldn't you really rather be spending time with Jon Stewart? At ease delivering off-color material on the stand-up stage, Louie's at sea in the world of relationships - as in next week's hilarious episode, when he finds himself on an outrageous set-up blind date with an explosively aggressive Melissa Leo (a guest-performance Emmy contender if I've ever seen one). In future weeks, he travels to Miami and embarks on an awkwardly touching bromance with a Cuban-American lifeguard, and then, after being badgered by his adorable daughters to find a girlfriend, becomes smitten by fetchingly mercurial bookstore clerk Parker Posey (her most appealing role in ages) in a multi-episode romantic escapade tinged with the freewheeling urban anxiety of upper-tier Woody Allen. (I wish I could be as rapturous about FX's other Thursday night comedy, the perverse talking-dog fantasy Wilfred, now in its second season at 10/9c, but the one-joke premise leaves me cold, though I know it has its champions.) More happy tidings, and a DVR alert, as MTV brings back the blissfully irreverent yet heartfelt teen-angst romantic comedy Awkward for a second season, airing directly opposite Louie at 10:30/9:30c. [...] if this week's Olympic swimming trials have whetted your appetite for next month's London Games, BBC America delivers a satirical treat in the uncannily topical Twenty Twelve, which is like The Office (original flavor) set loose amid the fumbling bureaucracy of a hapless "Olympics Deliverance Commission," tasked to promote and prepare for the games. The first three episodes air tonight starting at 9/8c, then the show moves to its regular Saturday night time period at midnight/11c, with two more back-to-back episodes, barreling through the show's two seasons. Downton Abbey's great Hugh Bonneville stars as the super-stressed "Head of Deliverance" Ian Fletcher, whose superbly polished double-speak and warped gift for reverse logic comes in handy as he oversees a staff of self-important incompetents - none more fatuous than Jessica Hynes' p.r. brand manager - as they bungle a cavalcade of excruciating calamities. The farcical plots involve such matters as a malfunctioning countdown clock (an incident echoed in real life), traffic that ensnares a visiting delegation from Rio, a wind turbine that lacks the wind to operate, and personnel screw-ups that invariably lead to the least appropriate person getting the job.
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