It is telling that Chelsea Handler does not play the lead character on "Are You There, Chelsea?", the new network sitcom based on her best selling book Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea.
I first encountered Chelsea Handler, author, during a Christmas hols visit to Florida. As a delayed departing flight hit the amorphous 30 minute mark, I got restless and decided to wander the terminal shops. Happily finding a bookshop, I soon discovered the selection extended only as far as the usual New York Times bestseller suspects. "Vodka" had recently been issued in paperback, and I decided to take the plunge. The book was not only funnier than I expected, but I was done reading before our two-hour-plus-delayed flight alighted.
Cut to the current television season, and the belated arrival of this largely conventional series. One of the first questions that comes to mind upon initial viewing is, "Why did this show not go to cable, a venue innately better suited to the ribald Handler?" After all, the source material includes amusingly recounted antics of inebriated altercations with law enforcement officials, squeamishly detailed sexual encounters, and embarrassing secrets about her family, including her hapless sister, Sloane. Perhaps the wryest irony is that Handler is cast not as herself, but as said sister.
Like the decision to cast her in the show but not as herself, the show itself can't help but feel a bit off-center. It's as if her supporting role in a show based on her life was a metaphor for the network shoehorning her decidedly R-rated exploits to the sidelines, the better to downplay her naughtiness for the masses. That, in a nutshell, is at the heart of the ill-conception that is "Chelsea" the series. Did the producers think that fitting her with a brown wig and shoving her off to a supporting role would trick the audience into forgetting they were watching the real Chelsea? Did Handler propose the idea as a form of meta-performance to the network? Did the network concede to letting her co-star in the show, knowing that a gifted comedienne she is, a skillful actor she's not?
Whatever the deal-striking, this conventional show may be somewhat risque in content, but its looks are decidedly recycled formalism. The bar where Laura "Chelsea" Prepon works is reminiscent of Central Perk from "Friends", which was a throwback to the bar in "Cheers", which reminds of the bar in the current "How I Met Your Mother." There is a sameness to the look of the show that does nothing so much as evoke boredom, not the sense of familiarity the designers were likely after.
Prepon and bartender Jake McDorman are game, but the Ted (see HIMYM for details) of this show is Natasha Leggero, a petite brunette staffer with evidently augmented breasts that are both the source of uninspired jokes, and seemingly her sustaining character trait. She is neither particularly gifted comically, nor particularly likable. As for Handler, she occasionally hits her comic mark, but she clearly lacks the technique of a formally trained actor. Her character is a mouthy prude whose louche demeanor suggests the party girl sister who is playing her.
Handler's chat show is one of late night's guiltiest pleasures, with the hostess mouthing off on any number of topical issues, including her sustained disdain for the Kardashians. Funny then that she seems to be similarly attempting to dominate the media with her pair of network series, her series of bestselling books, and the occasional film role, including an upcoming role in the new Reese Witherspoon movie. Would that her Oscar-winning friend could impart acting advice to the game but untrained actor Chelsea Handler.
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