Bebe Wood (far left), Andrew Rannells, Justin Bartha and Georgia King in "The New Normal"This could be NBC's answer to Modern Family, only with not as many heterosexual couples. Andrew Rannells from the Broadway show The Book of Mormon and Justin Bartha from The Hangover
co-star as Bryan and David, respectively, a wealthy, gay couple that
hires a woman to be the surrogate for the baby the two want to have.
Georgia King plays Goldie, the surrogate who's already a single mom
whose baby-daddy is a lying, cheating scumbag, played by Jayson Blair,
and whose mother is super racist and super homophobic, basically a bigot
with a gun. She's played by Ellen Barkin. Battling the forces of
ridiculousness with brutal honesty and uber-sassiness is Rocky, played
by Nene Leakes (Glee). Rounding out the cast is Bebe Wood who
plays Shania, Goldie's daughter, a little girl who's too wise for her
age, as evidenced by the fact that she can do a dead-on impression of
Little Edie from Grey Gardens.
Ryan Murphy created the show with Ali Adler. Murphy directed the pilot
episode and the show has the abrasiveness and sharp humor that we've
come to expect on a Ryan Murphy series. Murphy and his writers do come
up with some hilarious one-liners. While the show does get laughs, there
are aspects to it, which have been criticized.
Frank Bua wrote an article for The Huffington Post called "What's
Wrong With The New Normal." In it, he criticizes the depiction of gay
fathers. Being one himself, Bua found it degrading that The New Normal
doesn't represent his experience or perhaps the experiences of many or
that it doesn't do much to promote the issue of gay adoption in the way
that he thinks it should be promoted. Bua seems only satisfied if Murphy
were treating this subject with the utmost reality, reverence and
seriousness, which is fine for him, but he forgets that this is a
sitcom. Yes, Vice President Joe Biden recently cited Will & Grace as responsible for advancing gay rights or at least acceptance, but this show won't and shouldn't bear that burden.
On a grander scale, this show says something about fatherhood that is
rarely seen these days. If you look at other sitcoms that are new this
year like Baby Daddy on ABC Family or Guys With Kids on
NBC, fatherhood is always something that happens to young men. Never is
fatherhood something that young men actively seek out. There may be some
stereotypes that need to be overcome but the choice to become parents
is one that is reasonably being handled. The implication in Bua's
article is that gay fatherhood is taken lightly on this show, but in the
second episode Murphy and Adler add weight to the situation.
Bryan who is a mix of Jeff Lewis and Brad Goreski and David who is a
T-shirt and jeans, lying on the couch, watching football kind of guy,
both acknowledge in various ways that they might not be totally ready
and things come to challenge them or to challenge Bryan and David's
desire to be parents. Any perception of vainglorious reasons that Bryan
and David are doing what they're doing will likely be eroded at season's
end.
Three Stars out of Five.
Rated TV-14-DLS.
Running Time: 30 mins.
Airs Tuesdays at 9:30 on NBC.
