This sitcom suffers from a lack of imagination.
Note: this is a spoiler-free advance review of the first episode of Imaginary Mary, which premieres tonight on ABC.
It's been just over 20 years since The Simpsons episode "The Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie" show first aired, and somehow that episode only seems to grow more relevant with age. What better way to revive a tired show or spruce up a stale premise than inserting a faux-hip, wisecracking cartoon character into the mix? That seems to be the thinking here, as a painfully straightforward romantic comedy premise is embellished with the addition of a CGI-animated imaginary friend. Needless to say, this wisecracking cartoon sidekick shows no more staying power than Poochie himself did two decades ago.
Jenna Elfman (Dharma & Greg) stars in this comedy as Alice, your typical, successful professional woman afraid of both romantic commitment and children. Stephen Schneider (Broad City) and his facial hair co-star as Ben, a single father of three who threatens to overturn Alice's simple, comfortable world. Erica Tremblay, Matreya Scarrwener and Nicholas Coombe also star as Ben's superhumanly obnoxious children.
That elevator pitch could hardly come across as more generic sitcom fodder. Imaginary Mary attempts to shake things up with the addition of Mary (voiced by Rachel Dratch), Alice's childhood imaginary friend who makes an unexpected return appearance as Alice struggles with the pressures of meeting Ben's family and opening herself up for the first time in years. Much like Set MacFarlane's Ted, the series derives most of its humor from the juxtaposition between Mary's cutesy appearance and her foul-mouthed, raunchy behavior. In truth, Imaginary Mary comes across as the unholy offspring of both Ted and 1991's Drop Dead Fred.
Talking cartoon character notwithstanding, Imaginary Mary is a frustratingly generic show. That fact is made all the more annoying with the knowledge that The Goldbergs creator Adam F. Goldberg is one of the executive producers. The pilot is a mixture of bland sitcom tropes broken up by shots of Mary doing or saying something inappropriate. It doesn't help that Mary, unlike Ted, is an imaginary character, meaning that no one other than Alice ever interacts with her. That only further creates the impression that Mary was rudely stapled onto a generic sitcom in order to do something to help it rise above the pack.
Elfman is likable enough here, cookie-cutter though her character is. She brings plenty of enthusiasm and a decent amount of physical comedy to the role. The rest of the cast? Not so much. Schneider does little to stand out or bring any additional humor to the table. As for the three kids, none of them have any distinguishable characteristics beyond being hopelessly annoying. Coombe's Andy is a neurotic, reputation and social media-obsessed high schooler. Scarrwener's Dora is moody and sullen and little else. And Tremblay's Bunny is your typical overly precocious, mischievous Hollywood child. This episode does very little to justify the idea that Alice would actually want to welcome any of these people into her life.
Like Elfman, Dratch makes the most of what turns out to be a fairly one-note character. She brings the right personality to the part of Mary, one that's equal parts chipper and sardonic. But Mary tends to wear out her welcome pretty quickly, leaving you to wonder how the heck this show is supposed to survive over the long-term without some serious changes being made to the Alice/Mary dynamic. The show probably needs to find some way of bending reality and allowing Mary to begin interacting with one or more of Ben's children.
It does feel like there's a nugget of a decent show lurking somewhere beneath the generic facade in this episode. The pilot opens with a flashback to Alice's unhappy childhood, where she created Mary as a coping mechanism to help deal with two emotionally neglectful parents. There's clearly a deeper, more dramatic story that could be told involving Alice being forced to confront her repressed childhood trauma. This episode gives little sign that the show has much interest in doing that, however.
The Verdict
Those hoping Imaginary Mary would pave the way for Jenna Elfman's grand return to the sitcom stage will be sorely disappointed. The series struggles to liven up a hopelessly stale premise by throwing in a wisecracking cartoon character, and the results are just as bad as you'd expect. This series feels hopelessly generic in this pilot episode and it's not clear how the premise can even support a nine-episode season.
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