SERIES
Sitcom in the clouds
There’s a skit on Saturday Night Live where three contestants on “the most difficult game show ever” have to guess who the actor is after being shown his headshot: Dylan McDermott or Dermot Mulroney. They can’t get it right. Jamie Foxx (the guest star on the show that night) is especially enraged by how difficult it is. The two actors are often mistaken for each other. And now, in new sitcom LA to Vegas, McDermott and Mulroney star together in a few episodes. Mind totally blown.
McDermott, in case of confusion, was Julia Roberts’s husband in Steel Magnolias but everyone knows him as the hot lawyer in The Practice; the hot yet creepy husband in American Horror Story, and, more recently, the hot yet mysteriously creepy cop in
Stalker. Now he has a successful comedic turn as Captain Dave, a character in this oneliner snappy sitcom that follows the madcap crew and passengers on Jackpot Airlines, a budget airline that flies back and forth between Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
He is the pilot — vainglorious, moustached, boozed up and a bit of a saddo — yet McDermott manages to avoid his usual creepiness in this series. All Captain Dave wants is to still relive his glory days as a fighter pilot before he was dishonourably discharged. Captain Dave is hilariously cheesy with sincerity, with a likeability that is not forced.
Who knew McDermott could be funny. Mulroney (whose character didn’t get married to Julia Roberts in My Best Friend’s Wedding) has some comedy chops already and they are put to good use as Captain Dave’s nemesis — Captain Steve — the vainglorious, moustached etc. They are prepared to slug it out for the title of what they consider is the best pilot.
But the pilots are not the central figures in the story. That belongs to flight attendant Ronnie (Kim Matula, known for her role as Hope Logan in The Bold & The Beautiful) who in the pilot episode is trying to get a job on the Delta Airlines route to New York. Her colleague Bernard (Nathan Lee Graham, who has the funniest zingers) tells her Vegas is already the best route: “The only reason people go to New York is to work, or urgh, to see plays. Las Vegas is a place where tigers are liberated from their dirty jungles, and acrobats can make a living ...”
Among the passengers is Ronnie’s love interest Colin McCormack, played by Ed Weeks. Weeks one would think would be the better comic on the series (he was Dr Jeremy Reed in The Mindy Project), but he is the weakest. His character as the British professor of economics at UCLA, who goes to Vegas every weekend to see his son, is milquetoast.
Other characters are Olivia Macklin as Nichole, a fun and giggly stripper who tries to recruit new dancers on the flight, and the great, the hilarious and the downright scary Peter Stomare as the Russian Artem, a professional gambler and bookie.
They are all stereotypes but relatable and charmingly so. They work as a collective on a show that mostly takes place on an airplane set. The series is created by Lon Zimmet (Happy Endings, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) and it’s easy to see his framework. So it’s not Seinfeld or Modern Family quality (what is?) but the people on Jackpot Airlines do make it a delight to discover what happens next in Vegas.
The only reason people go to New York is to work, or urgh, to see plays