I don’t know how it does it, but The Crazy Ones continues to be one of the most boring comedies with one of the most amazing casts on the air today. I’ve always thought that maybe the problem with The Crazy Ones was the abundance of Robin Williams, but even in “The Intern,” where he barely shows up, it’s still as bland as can be.
I think the larger problem at hand in The Crazy Ones is that all of the characters in the show are still mostly unknown to us or have one main attribute that defines everything about who they are. Even worse, the show is starting to introduce guest characters who by the end of the episode, we know just as much about as we do about the main characters.
This week, Ashley Tisdale shows up as new intern Kelsi, the daughter of one of the company’s biggest clients, Laster Lunchmeats. So the team puts up with her as she complains about her new roommate, spends time on her phone and shows up to work late every day. The team tries to appease her by solving her roommate drama, in which they go to a Jewish frat, play beer pong and convince the roommate that she should take the smaller of their two rooms since smaller is cooler. But frankly, who cares?
At the end of the episode, Kelsi admits that she can do whatever she wants since her father will give her a job anyways, because that’s how she believes Sydney got her job. Kelsi is sorely mistaken though, as it is explained that Sydney got her position from hard work and not from being a daddy’s girl.
The slightly stronger story comes from Lauren trying to balance sort of seeing both Zach and Andrew. Lauren can’t stop sleeping with Zach, yet every day she goes to get coffee with Andrew, strictly as a friend, though Andrew doesn’t realize that. While Lauren uses Andrew to get past Zach, she soon realizes she wants to have some dessert with her coffee and continues to spend time with both. In the end, she drops both of them, becoming better for it, I guess.
The two stories intersect when a heartbroken Andrew is taken home by a disappointed Kelsi. So Andrew supposedly gets a happy ending because he gets to sleep with a horrible person? Alright…
Everything in The Crazy Ones is just so incredibly mediocre. The entire show is just treading on “meh.” It also feels like this show just exists in a vacuum, with nothing in any prior episode really having an effect on anything that comes after it. There are no continuing story arcs, nor any real characters to really bond with. Instead, all The Crazy Ones ever seems to offer every week is 20 minutes of boring stories that its writers apparently think are funny, followed by a solid minute of the most boring outtakes you’ve ever seen.
That’s hardly a formula for renewal.