The Sarah Silverman Program  is for my money the funniest live-action sitcom in production.
When this fast-moving comedy connects with a gag – which is shockingly often – it connects deftly and with might. It may have been years since I laughed aloud as much at a TV show.
“Program” is agreeably odd, similar in premise to “Seinfeld,” perhaps, but far closer in its profane anarchistic sensibility to “South Park.”
Sarah Silverman plays “Sarah Silverman,” an absurdly selfish and cheerfully jobless narcissist who lives with her waitress sister (“Comeback” co-star Laura Silverman) next door to a pair of mountainous homosexuals (mammothly entertaining heterosexuals Brian Posehn and Steve Agee).
In the first episode Silverman gets hammered on flavorful nighttime cold medicine and drives into a crowded schoolyard. We get to glimpse her slim and alluring bare hinder as she takes a musical pee.
The second episode is even funnier, with Silverman lending shelter to a grateful, if dangerously disturbed, homeless man (Zach Galifianakis). A hideous “American Werewolf”-style ghost and a queefing malady manifest elements both pivotal and engaging.
All six first-season episodes were written by Silverman in collaboration with Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab, the guys who wrote “Monster House” for the big screen. “Monster House” was funny stuff, but it was also PG; “Silverman” earns its TV-MA.
The show also boasts surprisingly high production values, with musical numbers, animated sequences and elaborate special effects in the mix. Schrab, who directed most of the episodes, demonstrates extraordinary care with the material, missing no opportunity to maximize the mirth with expertly framed visuals and superb pacing.
I tell you, “The Sarah Silverman Program” is hilarious and it is art. But why take my word for it?
Time Magazine said:
… I love it … it's got your poo humor. It's got your pushing-PC-boundaries humor. If you don't like that, you're not going to like this show (which is essentially an expansion of the staged bits from Jesus Is Magic). You may not have liked South Park or Borat either …
Entertainment Weekly gave it an “A-minus” and said:
… more or less just a miniaturized version of her 2005 movie Jesus Is Magic — featuring wan plots that serve as carriers for savage cultural observations, tiresome musical numbers, random sketches, and smart-bomb one-liners. (The first episode, for example, concerns a quest for batteries.) But where her movie overstayed its welcome, the quick-shot format of TV works beautifully. The result is haphazard, amoral, ridiculous, wildly offensive...and, you know, totally hilarious. …
The New Yorker said:
… the meanest sitcom in years — and one of the funniest … The brilliance of the show — the force of its argument that sitcoms turn us into loserish loners — is also its abiding flaw. We admire the purity of Silverman’s scornfulness, but we don’t want to hang out with her the way we did with Mary and Rhoda. Not that she’d let us get that close anyway. …
The San Franciso Chronicle said:
… It's not very often that a TV show bursting with imagination, audacity, rude charm and a relentlessly funny worldview gets on the air, much less appears fully formed. But Sarah Silverman … has delivered an offbeat gem … a brilliantly realized reinvigoration of the sitcom as only Silverman could dream it. …
The Hollywood Reporter said:
… Silverman's insensitive slacker character and her supporting cast milk big laughs out of mundane situations. … All series need time to discover their strengths and weaknesses, and this is no exception. But the show starts with a foundation of solid character comedy, which bodes well for the future.
Variety said:
… may be the brightest addition to Comedy Central's primetime roster since "South Park." … if the program itself isn't complete magic, then, excluding Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, it's certainly as close as Comedy Central has come to it in a good long time. …
Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Complete Series arrives today with all seven seasons going for $43.57 per season. Sold separatedly the same seasons go for north of $52.
Last week’s Entertainment Weekly picked the ten best episodes, namely:
10) “Chain of Command.” (6.10 / 6.11) While substitute Capt. Jellico annoys the crew of the Enterprise (he actually make Troi put on a real Starfleet uniform, which became her normal duds for the balance of the series’ run), David Warner in Cardassian makeup uses a brain implant to torture Picard to madness. Story credited to Frank Abatemarco; teleplay credited to Ronald D. Moore.
9) “The First Duty.” (5.19) Picard undertakes an investigation into a Starfleet Academy training accident that involved Wesley Crusher and left another cadet dead. Robert Duncan McNeill played a duplicitous cadet, Locarno, who became the model for Tom Paris, the character McNeill later played on “Voyager.” Teleplay credited to Naren Shankar and Ronald D. Moore.
8) “First Contart.” (4.15) Riker, undercover on a pre-warp-drive planet whose residents have no clue that there are other populated planets, is discovered to be an alien, forcing Picard to tell top government officials that they are not alone. Story credited to Marc Scott Zicree; teleplay credited to Dennis Russell Bailey, David Bischoff, Joe Menosky, Ronald D. Moore and Michael Piller.
7) “Sins of the Father.” (3.17) On the Klingon homeworld, Worf risks death in a bid to restore his dead father’s honor. Teleplay credited to W. Reed Moran and Ronald D. Moore.
6) “The Measure of a Man.” (2.9) When a Starfleet commander decides that Data is Starfleet property that should be torn apart and examined, Picard enters the courtroom to defend the android’s right to refuse. Teleplay credited to Melinda M. Snodgrass.
5) “All Good Things … ” (7.25) The series finale saw Picard skipping through three eras: seven years into the past (and the series’ first episode), the present, and a quarter century into the future. Teleplay credited to Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore.
4) “Tapestry.” (6.15) When Picard takes a deadly wound to the chest, Q shows him what his life would have been like if he had pursued a less risky life course. (A rare opportunity to see Patrick Stewart get frisky with an actress young enough to be his granddaughter.) Teleplay credited to Ronald D. Moore.
3) “The Inner Light.” (5.25) An probe forces Picard to live out a married flautist’s lifetime in the space of an hour. Story credited to Morgan Gendel; teleplay credited to Gendel and Peter Allan Fields.
2) “The Best of Both Worlds.” (3.26 / 4.1) The Borg turn Picard into Locutus. I saw the second half of this with an audience at the Museum of Broadcasting and I’ll never forget the huge laugh Worf got when he groused that the Borg have neither courage nor honor. Teleplay credited to Michael Piller.
1) “Yesterday’s Enterprise.” (3.15) A 22-year-old rift in time creates an alternate universe in which Tasha Yar was never killed and the Federation is fighting a losing battle against the Klingon empire. Teleplay credited to Richard Manning, Hans Beimler, Ira Steven Behr and Ronald D. Moore.
The same issue has an interesting piece by Adam B. Vary about the show’s origins. Learn:
* “Aliens” was one of the films Gene Roddenberry screened before going into production on the new series, and Jeanette Goldstein was considered to play a Latina Tasha Yar. Marina Sirtis read for Tasha.
* Troi was originally thought to be a cool, Spock-like “Icelandic blonde.”
* An early idea was to give Troi three breasts. (Recall that in Roddenberry’s failed pilot “Genesis II,” at least some of the future-girls had two navels.)
* Eric Menyuk, who went on to play Wesley’s pal The Traveler, was the producers’ second choice to play Data after Brent Spiner.
* Stephen Macht (“Cagney & Lacey”) was a leading candidate to play Picard.
* Producer Bob Justman discovered Patrick Stewart via a UCLA extension class he had enrolled in.
* Roddenberry was originally dead set against casting Stewart as captain. He wasn’t feeling the whole bald, fortysomething Englishman thing. It was Rick Berman who pushed for Stewart, and Roddenberry relented only weeks before production began.
* Some thought was given to putting Stewart in a wig.
* Q was not in the original pilot script. He was only added when Paramount execs, at the last minute, decided they wanted a two-hour first episode instead of a 90-minute one.
Read all of Vary’s EW piece here.
I’ve had huge issues with Jericho (yes, even with the final few episodes), but I watched every installment and I’m sure I’ll be back when the series resumes at midseason. But any enthusiasm I have for the series pales next to that of my friend and fellow editor Merrick over on the movie side of Ain’t It Cool. Here’s what he wrote about “Jericho” shortly after its “cancellation”:
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