TV review: Blunt Talk

I got this advice from one of my professors in film school: Good comedy comes in two forms: either the crazy guy in a sane world that tries to make sense of him, or a sane guy trying to make sense of the crazy world around him. If you make both the protagonist and the supporting characters crazy . . . well, that's just too much craziness. Without a framework of sanity to provide some sort of structure, not to mention a point of reference for the audience to relate to, all that lunacy sort of cancels itself out, and the result is often more wearying than funny.

Now, I don't know if that professor was quoting some  comedy guru somewhere, and I'm not sure if he was oversimplying or not, but I'll tell you one thing: Blunt Talk, the new (well . . . not brand new. Sorry for the delay in getting this review out!) comedy from actor Patrick Stewart and writer Jonathan Ames, could have benefited from that professor's advice. The prof's words of wisdom might not solve all of the show's problems, but they sure would have helped.

Stewart (best known to some for his Shakespearean work, but best known to most as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek) stars as Walter Blunt (or "the Major," as he is often called). Blunt is the host of the type of hard-hitting TV news shows that CNN and Fox News like so much these days. The show doesn't really deal with Blunt's politics, so much as the wacky adventures he gets into in his personal and professional life.

Blunt is the type of man who always means well but has so many vices that he's constantly getting into trouble. He's a borderline alcoholic, a casual drug user, a would-be womanizer, an absentee father, and more or less a consistent bungler whenever he tries to come up with his own ideas for his TV show's news stories.

The supporting cast mostly consists of Blunt's TV crew, entirely made up of eccentrics, as well as Blunt's best friend/ butler/ chauffeur, arguably the most eccentric character of all.

Getting back to where I started with this review, I think this show could work better if it was either a) about Blunt being an unpredictable loose cannon, and his hapless staff constantly trying to reign him in, or b) about the eccentric butler, producers, and writers surrounding the exasperated Blunt as Stewart plays straight man. But Blunt Talk tries to have it both ways, and the resulting wackiness often comes across as forced, as if the show is practically screaming at the viewer, "look at how outrageous we're being, now laugh, dammit!!"

The show is at its best during the rare moments when it bases its comedic scenes on more believable, more honest slice-of-life absurdity. In one scene, for example, Blunt visits a public restroom where everything -- the flush toilets, the sinks, the soap dispensers -- is automated, and Blunt's difficulties and gradually increasing frustration . . . well, the scene is directed, performed, and written astoundingly well. This scene, and a couple of others like it, had me laughing hysterically. For the most part, though, the show just tries too hard to be super-wacky, and I just stare at the screen. I don't quite dislike it, but I don't quite like it either.

Patrick Stewart is, of course, a superb actor, and his charisma carries the show a long way. The character of Walter Blunt is, I suppose, the inevitable culmination of a persona Stewart has been carefully constructing for a while now. Between his hilarious cameo in Ricky Gervais's Extras, and his multiple collaborations with Seth MacFarlane (who, incidentally, serves as a producer, but  not a writer, for Blunt Talk) Stewart has cultivated an image of himself as a bawdy, fun-loving man, a deliberate contrast with his oh-so-serious performances in works by Roddenberry and Shakespeare.

Look, I certainly don't mean to imply that this is a terrible show. The show is not without its charms. I can easily see some people getting a big kick out of Stewart's antics in Blunt Talk, and I wouldn't fault them for it. But I have to be honest: I am not one of those people.