‘Great News’ is awfully familiar but still a hoot
You’re taking your life in your hands titling a new sitcom “Great News,” because if it isn’t, headline writers are going to have a field day.
NBC’s new sitcom is pretty “Great News,” as you’ll see when it premieres on Tuesday, April 25. It’s derivative — boy, is it ever — but you’ll derive enjoyment from it, and that’s all that counts.
The show is set in a local TV newsroom where Katie Wendelson (Briga Heelan) is struggling to get her boss, Greg (Adam Campbell), to give her real stories to produce and not just fluff. She gets her shot, of course, but by then, the show has shifted focus to Katie’s meddling mom, Carol (Andrea Martin), who constantly says and does inappropriate things and
ends up getting hired as an intern at the station. Although “Great News” is an ensemble show, it’s essentially the Andrea Martin show, and there is nothing wrong with that.
The show was created by Tracey Wigfield, who also plays the wacky and weird weather reporter at the station (she dreams of being able to actually control the weather, and she’s not kidding). Wigfield has experience working on both “The Mindy Project” and “30 Rock.” Oh, and Tina Fey is among the executive producers, as is her producing partner and “30 Rock” showrunner, Robert Carlock.
So, yes, “Great News,” like “30 Rock,” is about a TV producer. The two shows also share a vision of weird misfits who bumble their way through their jobs in the background but still manage to produce TV.
There are other touchstones, as well. Viewers of a certain age will look at the self-important, terminally insecure news anchor Chuck Pierce (John Michael Higgins) and immediately think Ted Baxter. It’s not Wigfield’s fault: Every film or TV portrayal of a dopey newsman for the past three decades and change owes something to Ted Knight’s silver-haired clown from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” That said, Higgins is hilarious, especially playing off his co-anchor, Portia (Nicole Richie), who is a name-dropping, celebrity-obsessed trend slave.
The writing is sassy enough to make you indifferent to the show’s source material, including, of course, the Robert De Niro movie “The Intern.” Martin dominates every scene she’s in and, in truth, the double Tony winner’s acting style, honed by multiple Broadway roles over the years, is so broad, only a powerful ensemble cast like this one could even share the screen with her.
You may have trouble figuring out what “fake news” is in the real world, but you’ll have no problem figuring out that “Great News” is pretty funny in the TV world.