Le Provocateur

Issue date: 9/15/04 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Not long after the Friends gang sipped their last coffee at Central Perk, NBC announced that actor Matt LeBlanc would continue his role as Joey Tribbiani, the slightly clueless struggling actor, in a Friends spin-off. The show, unoriginally titled Joey, was intended to provide fans with a substitute for their beloved sitcom.
The show tracks Joey's move to Hollywood and his struggle to become a famous actor. In his journey to find success in California, some new "friends" join Joey. The cast of the sitcom cannot help but impress the viewer. Drea de Matteo, known for her role in The Sopranos, plays Joey's sister, Gina. Jennifer Coolidge, best known to the college population as Stifler's mom in American Pie, plays Joey's agent, Bobbie. Finally, trying to fill the shoes of Chandler, Joey's nephew Michael, played by Paulo Costanzo, becomes the struggling actor's roommate.
Joey seems to have all the ingredients for sitcom success. However, the script fails to live up to viewer expectations.
The jokes in Joey strive too hard to be funny. Show writers rely upon getting a laugh out of things such as Gina's breast augmentation and Joey's decision not to star in a sitcom called Nurses. The continual references to these things, which were not particularly funny the first time around, bore the viewer. While the character of Joey mixed well with the personalities of five other friends, Joey's dim-witted personality overwhelms on its own.
In addition, the script lacks originality. When Joey receives a call from his agent, the viewer is not surprised to learn that the call notified Joey that his television show was cancelled. We expect Joey to be down and out on his luck. Unfortunately, if writers leave Joey at this spot all year, fans will become jaded. You can't root for the underdog when you know he's never smart enough to win.
Writers do not try to instill Joey with any signs of intelligence or humanity. As a result, while the character of Joey melded well with five others on Friends , he cannot hold his own in a half-hour sitcom. The viewer cringes in pain as Matt LeBlanc tosses off lines like, "Welcome to Hollywood Minute, I'm name."
The only bright spot in the sitcom comes when the writers stop trying to make the audience laugh. The chemistry between De Matteo and LeBlanc when they are joking with each other or debating about whether Michael should move in suggests real sibling affection. If writers spent more time developing these characters' human sides, Joey might become a show almost worth the audience's time.
Unfortunately, as it stands now, the show fails to qualify as must-see TV and leaves viewers feeling like a Central Perk coffee with sugar substitute in place of the real thing.
Copy Editor
English

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