Commentary

'Truth Be Told': New NBC Sitcom Is The Bland Leading The Bland

Another day, another new network sitcom.

They really do have a way of blending together -- so much so that you can be forgiven for being unable to distinguish one from the other. Or maybe there’s a new word you could apply here --“blanding” together -- to describe how network sitcoms all seem the same after a while.

Such is the case with a new NBC comedy called “Truth Be Told,” which was first introduced last May at the NBC Upfront with the title “People Are Talking.” The title became “Truth Be Told” some months later after someone apparently realized that “People Are Talking” was generic and essentially meaningless -- like naming a show “How Ya Doin’?”

Not that “Truth Be Told” is so much better, but at least it’s vaguely related to what the show is about -- which has something to do with speaking the truth about people without offending anyone (I think). 

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Premiering Friday night at 9:30 Eastern on NBC, “Truth Be Told” is about a pair of thirty-something couples (heterosexual ones) who are next-door neighbors in an ethnically diverse suburb. One couple is black (played by Tone Bell and Bresha Webb) and the other comprises a white man (played by grown-up Mark-Paul Gosselaar who played Zack in “Saved By the Bell”) and a woman (Vanessa Lachey) who is described as part-Asian.

On the show, the characters -- particularly the two husbands who are best friends -- engage frequently in conversations about which ethnic, religious, racial and cultural subjects are appropriate to talk about and which are not. 

Or to put it another way, whenever their conversations veer too closely to politically incorrect territory, the discussions turn to that very subject. Examples include the premiere episode’s first scene, in which the two husbands wait for a brown bag of takeout food in a Chinese restaurant and debate whether the Chinese hostess’s broken English is authentic or fake. They had just heard her say: “One second I go kitchen get your ordah!”

In another scene, the two men are riding in a car and singing along to a Jay Z song, when they reach the forbidden n-word. A debate ensues about the word, its use in the song and who is permitted to utter it. Conclusion: African-Americans are allowed to say it, while white people are not. The discussion is good-humored, but not particularly humorous. Nor is it especially new or insightful since it’s a debate and a conclusion that you’ve heard a million times before.

The neighborhood in “Truth Be Told” is so diverse that the neighbors on the other side of the white couple’s house are a family of orthodox Jews, whose many children inspire the white couple to ask the Jewish couple if they would kindly recommend a babysitter. The sitter they send their way is a voluptuous young woman apparently of mixed Asian heritage who performs in adult films.

Jews, Asians, white people, the occasional biracial porn star -- on this show, they’re all fodder for discussions and debates about cultural differences, a topic that happens to be an obsession in mainstream culture these days. And there’s no better indication that a subject has gone mainstream than when it gets taken up in a bland network sitcom.

“Truth Be Told” premieres Friday (Oct. 16) at 9:30 p.m. Eastern on NBC.

 

1 comment about "'Truth Be Told': New NBC Sitcom Is The Bland Leading The Bland ".
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  1. Stan Valinski from Multi-Media Solutions Group, October 15, 2015 at 2:34 p.m.

    Well said Adam. Insightful review. You pointed out NBC's main creative problem. Everything is overproduced and under creative. Take this interesting concept and instead of over written "Hollywood" style screenplay and polished production try a more real, semi-hand held, semi-improv approach. Tapping into a "cortsortium of creative talent" that inclludes everyone's ideas from Producers to grips. Maybe we should hashtag NBC/UNI with "Break the Blending"!

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