Rashida Jones, notable for her television, "Parks and Recreation" and movie, "Jesse and Celeste Forever" roles, is a producer for "A to Z" and is determined to make #SaveAtoZ happen. Well, I'm not really sure that this show warrants saving or necessarily needs a hashtag to do it.
"A to Z" is a show starring Andrew, played by Ginsberg from "Mad Men" really played by Ben Feldman and Zelda, played by Cristin Milioti, who are "destined" to be together. To make itself unique, the show states that it will depict the relationship of these two over the course of an alphabet, hence the A to Z, and Andrew and Zelda, GET IT!?, revealing to the audience that this relationship will end after the course of this alphabetical route. OH no, you gasp! These two are so quirky and lovable, how could they? Well, I predict, that this show will say that their relationship ended and their marriage began, or something to that effect, to trick the audience while also keeping hope alive. However, sadly, this show may not make it to the second season. NBC has not ordered a second season of this show and it looks like it just may run its course for just one season, unless Rashida Jones saves it! But, this brings me to my point, does this show need to be saved?
In my opinion, it doesn't. A number of fans believe that this show receives the ratings it does because it's paired with "How to Get Away with Murder" and fans believe that it should be moved to the same night as "Marry Me", a hilarious show starring Casey Wilson and Ken Marino as two newlyweds coming to terms with their new life and the various differences that come between them. The problem with that move is "Marry Me" is hilarious and "A to Z" isn't all that funny and I think that a move, such as this, would only make the differences between the two shows more apparent. The main characters in "A to Z" are cute an quirky, but themarket is current saturated with that from "New Girl" and "The Mindy Project" and I don't think the market will benefit from another cute and quirky couple.
The extended cast in "A to Z" don't really offer much to the audience other then having less time with the main characters. Stu, played by Henry Zebowski, is hit or miss, and Stephie, played by Lenora Crichlow, doesn't offer much either, other than being the stereotypical female character who can't get out of her own way when it comes to love and who will enivabily fall for Stu because they just compliment each other so well. The weirdest and seemingly useless members of the cast include Big Bird, AKA Andrew's boss, played by Christina Kirk, and Howard, played by Ben Falcone, who appears to be the entire entity that is Human Resources for the company that Andrew works for. These two are often paired up and engage in unusual and often distracting behaviors that don't really add much to the plot. And there are a few other characters here and there but this cast is unusual in that much of the people outside the two main characters, don't matter. That being said, I wouldn't like watching a show with just the two main characters on screen, all the time.
I don't think this show can be saved, as I have made perfectly clear, but I think there are some changes that should be made that would increase its chances of possibly being saved.
1. Random cursing. Strange, I know, but I feel that "Marry Me" and "The Goldbergs" both benefited from these random bleeps because they are hilarious, despite being fairly juvenile and crass, and often seem unusual for the character stating them. And when other characters notice this, it's equally funny.
2. Loosen up the two main characters. Make them laugh, work on improv, work off the script. Do something to increase the hilariousness of this show.
3. Cut Big Bird and Howard, or make them more prevalent, but don't keep them on as they are currently doing, because, well, they don't really add much to the show.
4. Make Stu, weirder? I guess? I'm not really sure that this would work, but he already seems strange, just make him a little more strange and he might just become a funny random character.
5. Stop Zelda from getting in her own way. She's done this for at least 4 episodes and I'm tired of watching her sabotage the relationship she has with Andrew. Every epsiode shouldn't be about how cold or distant or out of touch with her emotions Zelda is. Andrew has problems too, I'm sure, so make them more noticeable.
6. And finally, don't change the time slot. If anything, this show would benefit from being placed next to a drama and if it was moved to follow or precede a comedy show, it would only be compared to it.
Don't agree? Huge fan of Zeldrew? And think this show should be around FOREVER? Comment and let's get a discussion going.
Written by cwm on Nov 10, 2014
This was a cute and funny show while it lasted. It would have been nice if the show actually had enough episodes to get through the entire A-Z alphabet though.
I guess you're right, it's entertaining enough to kill 30 minutes but not special enough to warrant a hashtag to save it, lol