Andy Barker, P.I.: Thrilling as Tax Time
Andy Barker, P.I.
Title: "Pilot"
First Aired: 03/15/07
Andy Barker, P.I. couldn't possibly have premiered at a worse time. Not only did the show launch during spring break, when most of the target demographic is busy shooting day-glo test tubes of some soon-to-be-forgotten booze concoction, but it also coincided with the beginning of the Big Dance, aka March Madness, aka the NCAA basketball tournament.
The only enduring truism of network TV in the last half-decade is that American Idol can kill any competing show just by breathing bad renditions of “Tears of a Clown” in its general direction. NBC was smart to avoid putting Andy Barker, P.I. up against the behemoth. But maybe not smart enough. The choice between college basketball and spring break dance parties on the beach is hard enough for most 18-to-25-year-olds. The ones who decided to stay home and watch Andy Barker, P.I. probably don’t have enough petty cash to spend on whatever it is the advertisers are pimping.
It may be just as well that no one's watching, because Andy Barker, P.I. is a single gag
that’s not very funny. A Russian bombshell confuses accountant
Andy Barker for the private investigator who used to occupy his
office. Miss Moscow gives Andy $4,000 to find her maybe-not-dead-after-all
husband, who turns out not to be her husband in the first place. It’s
pure boilerplate private eye schlock. The fact that the P.I. is actually a C.P.A. doesn't make it any more interesting.
Clearly, someone thought it would be hilarious to have a really boring character caught in a series of madcap adventures. The problem is that this boring character spends a little too much time focusing on what makes him so boring in the first place: taxes. At one point Andy asks his wife, “You know that feeling I get when I hit the equal sign on the calculator, and the number on the calculator is the same as the number on the worksheet?” To be fair, that joke is funny... once. It is not, however, enough of a hook to carry a 22-minute pilot, much less a weekly show.
Beating up on Andy Richter feels as rotten as taunting the kid who gets picked last for the kickball team. But there’s a reason Andy's always playing second fiddle. Even the most minor characters outshine him. The clerk from the neighboring video store played by Tony Hale (Buster from Arrested Development) is by far the best part of the show. “I gotta go; there’s a beefy goth chick in Horror,” he says over the phone by way of goodbye. Again, that's funny, but Hale's character doesn’t contribute much beyond the occasional good line. He's completely peripheral to the story, and it's clear why: The show's written around Andy's dullness. There's no room for anyone to shine.
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