Trophy Wife a winning show
First it was a bed-bug infestation on The Michael J. Fox Show, now it’s a lice infestation in Trophy Wife. Once again, likeminded sitcoms think alike. This week’s outing of Trophy Wife finds the Harrison household overrun by lice, prompting Pete’s (Bradley Whitford) first ex-wife Diane (Marcia Gay Harden) to take charge, over new wife Kate’s (Malin Akerman) dead body, if that’s what it takes.
Kate and Jackie (Michaela Watkins), Pete’s second ex-wife, come up with a plan of their own, to prove a point and to show Diane who’s boss, but in true sitcom fashion, everything they do makes a bad situation worse. Meanwhile, Pete, a lawyer by profession, has to play mediator between their two children, who are fighting over a teddy bear.
In a TV season crowded with so many new sitcoms, it was inevitable that a few would last the season, if only through sheer force of numbers. ABC’s pickup last week of Trophy Wife for a full season means its short-term future is no longer in doubt. A decision on whether Trophy Wife is picked up for a second season will have to wait until May, but with so many of ABC’s new comedies falling short of expectations, the early signs look encouraging. If you’re a fan, that is.
Trophy Wife has transcended its off-putting, somewhat misleading title to become a modest success story, thanks to fair-to-middling writing and some winning performances. Swedish-born, Ontario-raised Akerman and Emmy Award-winner Bradley Whitford make an oddly endearing couple as the semi-reformed party girl and the older, twice-married lawyer she met at a karaoke bar, and later married to become his third wife.
Trophy Wife mines much of its comedy from the pair’s messy, extended families, who are compelled to get along, if only for the sake of the newlyweds. Harden and Watkins are ideally cast as “ex-wife No. 1” and “ex-wife No. 2,” respectively. Every promising sitcom needs a comic foil, or two. Like Modern Family, Trophy Wife’s biggest laughs come from life’s misunderstandings, unintended or deliberate, when people of different ethnicities, cultures and backgrounds are thrown together by the bonds of family — and family members’ marriages. (ABC, CTV — 10:30 p.m.)