‘Earth’ to Conan: The aliens are real
O’Brien’s love of edgy humor takes him to a new sitcom that’s really out there
A new species of sitcom is landing on TBS. The Conan O’Brien-produced
People of Earth (premiering Monday, 9 ET/PT) centers on a skeptical journalist named Ozzie Graham (Wyatt Cenac) sent on assignment to a small-town support group for people who believe they were abducted by Martians. Created by newcomer David Jenkins and executive-produced by Greg Daniels (NBC’s
The Office), the extraterrestrial comedy tracks Ozzie’s descent into zany madness as he starts to think that he, too, may be an alien “experiencer.”
O’Brien, Jenkins and Daniels caught up with USA TODAY to chat about the offbeat People and the state of TV comedy: Q Where did the idea for this show come from?
JENKINS: I read about an alien-abduction support group on the East Coast, and they just sounded very interesting to me. They all sounded like normal people. I started the article expecting to hear about a bunch of crazy people you would find on Craigslist or something, but they were Realtors, bankers (and) had jobs. Q Conan, what about David’s voice or sense of humor did you respond to?
O’BRIEN: When you make comedy for a living, people always say, “You must go home and love watching comedy.” I love watching things that have a strong comedic element, but often I find myself drawn to shows like (FX’s)
Fargo, things that have a real dark subcurrent. I really love stuff that’s trying to frighten me and has an edgy tone, and what I loved about this script was the humor kept sneaking up on me. It was a comedic take on an
X-Files ... but (also a) well-observed comedy of human interaction. Not jokes, not gags — just comedy that is like oaked wine. It’s in there, but it’s not in your face. Q What are some of your favorite comedies now?
My favorite right now DANIELS: is (Amazon’s) Fleabag. I think it’s amazing.
I like (FX’s) Atlanta. I O’BRIEN: just want to go door to door and tell people to watch it. There was
an episode a week or two ago where maybe two-thirds of the commercials were these subtle parodies that wove their way through the show. ... They completely had me. Q Do you think the fact that TV is so fragmented now — with cable, streaming and network sitcoms — is better or worse for comedy?
O’BRIEN: It’s the yin and yang. There’s never been more good television being made than there is at this moment. The flip side is that you can have seven or eight like-minded friends in a room talking about their favorite shows, and in the past, that’d usually mean the same one or two shows. Now it’s someone saying Fleabag, someone saying Atlanta, someone else saying
Black Mirror (or) Game of Thrones. So I think it’s harder for shows to grab America with a capital “A,” but I’m not even sure that’s necessary.
JENKINS: We’re still at this place where we say a half-hour is comedy, an hour is not comedy. I’m relieved to see something like Atlanta or (HBO’s) High Maintenance, where those are not “laugh, laugh, laugh” shows. Some people say, “Oh, it’s a dramedy,” and I feel that’s an interesting place for comedy to be. Q Do you believe in aliens?
DANIELS: If you study science and know how many planets there are that could carry life, how many star systems, I think the odds are that there’s got to be alien life somewhere out there.
O’BRIEN: I agree. But my suspicion is that they don’t have really cool spaceships and ray guns. It’s going to be like a three-celled kind of yeast. We’re going to see this new life and expect them to be way more advanced than we are, and then we’re going to end up slowly teaching them how to make fire.