Advance Review: Look, full disclosure. The one time I actually found myself laughing out loud during the pilot episode of NBC's Animal Practice was...monkey-related. And by monkey-related, I mean Crystal the Monkey-related (Annie's Boobs on Community, Night at the Museum movies, We Bought a Zoo, destroyer of worlds). So NBC is either ingenious for dressing up their most valuable prime time player - a Capuchin monkey - in a tiny white doctor's coat and calling her Dr. Rizzo, or they're in big trouble.
CUT TO: Crane Animal Hospital. Which is the size of a giant, real-life human hospital. For reasons unexplained.
Animal Practice is a by-the-numbers, broad animal-heavy comedy featuring a veterinary hospital filled with kooky TV characters (the "inappropriate one," the "nervous one," etc) headed up by Justin Kirk as Dr. George Coleman; a lothario vet who likes animals more than people. Kirk, as an actor, is right at home playing the guy who's bitter that his girlfriend left him because he was an inattentive jerk and now feels the need to be even more of an inattentive jerk because his girlfriend left him. The gimmicky problem with Dr. Coleman though is that because he's such an obsessive animal specialist, he must, at all times, relate every situation to the animal kingdom; monogamy, dominance hierarchies, being able to tell "all you need to know about a woman" by her dog, etc. And Coleman's instincts are usually initially wrong (for the sake of comedy), but then ultimately right (to legitimize his character).
So what gets Coleman's dander up? People. Just because. And I only offer that up as a reason because we never really follow Coleman on his rounds or watch him have to suffer the idiocy of the animal owners that he claims are the worst. Not until Matt Walsh's (Veep) character arrives as an extremely uncaring dog owner; a plant to make the audience see things Dr. Coleman's way. Representing the "good side of people" however is Coleman's ex, Dorothy (JoAnna García), who returns to butt heads with Coleman and run the animal hospital. And by the end of the episode, he sees things a little bit her way, and she his. The first steps on the road leading them both back into each others' arms. Of course, given the way Coleman is, one does wonder how Dorothy ever fell in love with him in the first place.
At this point though, since I don't feel as though I'll ever have any vested interest in Animal Practice, I want the show to succeed simply because I want Tyler Labine (Reaper, Mad Love) to be a part of a show that stays on the air. Labine is always good, even when he's playing the actual straight-man role, which he does here as Dr. Doug Jackson. Bobby Lee (MADtv) is also good, as the fidgety, emasculated Dr. Yamamoto. The problem here is that, honestly, is that I was tired of Yamamoto by the end of the episode. I'd had my fill of all the crazy characters actually. As well as the premise. And as momentarily cute as it can be to see a monkey, who earns $12,000 an episode, ride a mini-ambulance, animal antics seem to be the best that this series has to offer.
The opening of the episode features a cat trying to commit suicide to escape its cloying owner who forces it to watch The Wendy Williams Show. That's funny. The next scene features Dr. Coleman explaining to the woman that her cat tried to commit suicide. Which sucks the funny right out of the previous funny. So while Animal Practice has the potential to dish out devious laughs, it's going to always wind up playing it safe in the end and rely on reaction shots from Dr. Rizzo in place of a laugh track.
NBC will air a special sneak preview of the pilot on Sunday, August 12th right after the Olympics Closing Ceremony. The official series premiere is on Wednesday, September 26th.
Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and IGN. WARNING: No Nudity!
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