NBC's 'The New Normal' is less funnier than 'Whitney' -not sure how that's possible

I watched The New Normal pilot that The Advocate posted on their website. It's the new show from Ryan Murphy. And while it's hard to really gauge a sitcom by its pilot, I'm sad to say I felt this was a huge misfire.

I'm not sure what to expect from it, considering Ryan is somewhat uneven in his style. The characters are not only all typical sitcom archetypes, they're also portrayed as stereotypical -especially the gay men.

So the setup is -and stop me if you've not heard this before- Bryan (Andrew Rannells) and David (Justin Bartha) are a happy LA based couple, with successful respective careers (yes, once again, everyone in Southern California, especially the gays, have money). The only thing missing in their relationship is a baby. Cue the awww. Bryan, the obviously feminine bottom, suddenly has his biological clock go off when seeing a baby while shopping. He convinces his partner David, the more masculine top, that they should have a baby.

I’m unsure at what point Murphy or NBC said we need to play it safe, and basically portray the gay couple with an obvious “husband” and an obvious “wife” for those Red Staters, less they don’t get the full idea of the show. 

Anyways, so right now, this could be the plot line of every standard relationship show TV has been churning out for the last 60 plus years. So right now, you know the only thing that makes it different from say Up All Night, is that it’s a gay couple. Wow, revolutionary.

Meanwhile, in Ohio, a girl named Goldie (Georgia King), who apparently had a baby at 15, is in a car with her grandmother (Ellen Barkin) and her 8 year-old daughter Shania (Bebe Wood). After a diatribe from said grandmother after seeing two lesbians with a baby –and who also insults her own granddaughter- and after catching her husband with another woman, Goldie "borrows" her grandmother's car and ends up in Los Angeles.

Through the miracle of circumstances and typical TV luck, Goldie ends up agreeing to be a surrogate for David and Bryan (is it weird that my name is David and I have a brother named Brian?).

The biggest problem with the show is that all the cast members are pretty much unappealing, thus the show is a huge step backwards in sitcom development and better gay portrayals. However, you can't help but love Georgia King, though she is written as an idiot and wimp. Her daughter, following strict sitcom scenarios, is wiser and smarter than her mother and great-grandmother combined.

Ellen Barkin, who has played flamboyant characters and stole whole scenes from other actors (most memorably in 1999's Drop Dead Gorgeous) is set as the Archie Bunker for the 21st Century. And while that is a horrible comparison, and an insult to Carol O’Connor’s acting skills, the idea that she is a racist and potty mouth is neither funny nor dangerous in this day and age. 

The worst, by far, however is NeNe Leakes, who shot to fame in the Bravo reality series The Housewives of Atlanta. Murphy cast her in a recurring role on his other show Glee, as Roz Washington, McKinley High's synchronized swim coach and rival to Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch). On that show, Leakes was just an opinionated, loud, diva black woman who went toe-to-toe with Sue. Here in The New Normal, she is playing essentially the same character and who will probably go toe-to-toe with Barkin's grandmother character.

And she can’t act, which is an insult –again-to the many real actors in Hollywood struggling. It’s a shame, really. 

It's clear that Ryan Murphy is more flash than substance. Glee has failed to recapture the gold it spun in its first season, and his American Horror Story series is just painfully overrated, de-evolved schlock horror with terrific actresses like Jessica Lange trolling for Emmy and Golden Globe statues because she can no longer get roles where women are not victims or trolls. 

While this show seems to be a paint-by-number version of ABC's Modern Family, this pilot does not even come close to MF’s weaker efforts. The New Normal comes off as typical sitcom, cut from the same cloth as so many other failed comedy shows where the creators decide that anything original and different must be squashed, the light leeched out of the scripts. Another words, we've seen this all before and at this point, I can't see the show coming anywhere near being better than say NBC's Whitney, the worst sitcom from last year.