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life w/o broad yuks
Fox sitcom captures absurdities of dorm living
By Elizabeth White
"Undeclared," Fox’s new sitcom that debuts tonight at 8:30 p.m., is probably one of the best shows to hit the airways this year.
Having said that, "Undeclared" is not nearly as funny as you think it will be.
That’s because "Undeclared" doesn’t aspire to have its audience members continually rolling out of their seats. Instead it accomplishes almost perfectly its aim of showing the often absurd and always weird situations that arise in college life.
When the show is funny, it is absolutely drop-dead funny, and the humor is the result of a slowly developing set of situations that build to a big comedic payoff.
And even when the show is not explicitly funny, it still rings true, as, for example, in the way freshman roommates cling to each other or how the guy with the accent gets all the girls.
The four roommates that "Undeclared" centers around form a superb core of likable but mischievous guys, all of whom will probably remind viewers of people they know.
Steven Karp (Jay Baruchel) is the innocent of the roommates, a dork in high school who grew seven inches his senior year and hopes to capitalize on his new cool potential in college.
Steven shares a room with Lloyd (Charlie Hunnam), a British theater major who serves as the room’s girl magnet. The other two roommates are a flaky music major, Marshall (Timm Sharp), and a more serious business major Ron (Seth Rogan).
Louden Wainwright earns high marks as Stephen’s dad, a guy who sticks around the college because he realizes a freshman dorm is more fun than most other things in life. Wainwright is silly without mugging for the camera, a middle-aged man who still enjoys a rousing game of beer pong.
The guys bond quickly in the first episode as they devise a plan for meeting girls (throw a party) and set an easygoing tone that carries over to the rest of the characters. Major conflicts, like break-ups and divorce, fall by the wayside as beer, girls and junk food show up. Such is also true in college.
In many ways, "Undeclared" is a perfect lead-out for "That '70s Show," another show that treats the coming of age of its characters as a fun but ironic party, mixing teenage angst with goofy troublemaking and lots of decadence.
But viewers looking for the wacky humor of "That '70s Show" will be disappointed in "Undeclared." Hopefully, they won't be so disappointed that they'll tune out, missing one of the best-made shows in recent years.
September 25, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
-Elizabeth White is a staff writer for Media Life.
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