Is organ failure funny? ‘B positive’!
“B Positive” (8:30 p.m., CBS, TV-PG) debuts, and its message is embedded in its title.
The premise of the series is rather outlandish. Like many sitcoms of this sort, it’s based on the true story of its co-creator, Marco Pennette, a writer on “Mom” and part of Chuck Lorre’s ensemble.
Thomas Middleditch (“Silicon Valley”) stars as Drew, a rather glum divorced therapist who discovers in the opening moments that he’s suffering renal failure and will likely die if he doesn’t undergo a kidney transplant. His dire and immediate need for an organ donor serves to remind him how estranged he has become from his family and of the superficial nature of his so-called friendships.
While attending the wedding of an old friend, he encounters Gina (Annaleigh Ashford), someone he knew casually in high school, a free spirit known for promiscuity and partying. While not without charm, Drew saw her as the kind of flake who ended up sleeping with other boys.
Very much under the influence(s), Gina promises to donate a kidney to Drew. Is she for real? Or is this a casual, drunken promise? Can Drew depart from his dour ways and embrace this life-saving opportunity? Can Gina stay clean and sober long enough for her kidney to become worthy of donation? How many episodes or seasons will unfold before these two become an item?
Middleditch, who played an asocial savant in “Silicon Valley,” has to share most scenes with Ashford, best known for her roles in musical theater (“Kinky Boots”). She doesn’t merely steal every scene, she devours them. In a strange act of compensation, Middleditch is given awkward moments of physical comedy. In the pilot, he’s forced to crawl all over a desk and then onto the hood of a moving van. Cast as a depressed, divorced, middle-aged guy, he’s not supposed to be in touch with his physicality.
When not plastered, Gina drives a van for elderly and terminally ill patients, with whom she shares an easy rapport, lubricated by dark humor.
To say Drew and Gina share little chemistry is an understatement. The always sunny Sarah Rue plays Drew’s ex-wife, and although they share scant seconds together on screen, it’s inconceivable that their two characters would ever date, never mind marry.
The essential question is where can “B Positive” possibly go? Its story seems more like the premise for a Neil-Simonish play, with a beginning, middle and an end. It’s hard to see an organ-donation story running for more than half a season. Drew may survive his renal failure, but “B Positive” seems like a
terminal case.
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