• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, January 2, 2025

If anyone can name the last service comedy on network TV, then please feel free to inform the rest of us in the comments section below.

The question arises because of the arrival on Thursday of “Going Dutch,” a service comedy in the grand tradition in which Denis Leary plays the newly installed commanding officer of a small, non-combatant Army post in Holland populated by a troupe of Gomer Pyles.

He is not quite Sgt. Bilko or Quinton McHale, but more like Sherman Potter, a by-the-book “regular Army” colonel who eventually adapted to his undisciplined camp of army surgeons on “M*A*S*H.” 

But if the Leary character, U.S. Army Col. Patrick Quinn, eventually acquiesces to the idiosyncrasies of his new Army underlings -- or at least meets them halfway -- then this change of heart is not yet set in motion in the premiere episode of “Going Dutch” previewed by the TV Blog.

Despite his transfer to this base of Army slackers, Col. Quinn is motivated to do a job that will be noticed by top Army brass so that he can be transferred out of there as soon as possible.

That may be difficult, however, since his assignment to this new base was an act of punishment exacted by an Army general who Quinn pointedly, and with many f-words, insulted in a diatribe that was recorded by another officer’s bodycam.

So here he is, overseeing a base where the principal activities are bowling, producing artisanal cheese, and general dereliction of duty.

In fact, the personnel on this base probably do not even know what their duties are, or aware that they even have any. 

For example, no one seems to know where the base’s guns are stored, or even if the base has any guns in the first place. 

A new wrinkle in the annals of TV service sitcoms sets “Going Dutch” apart from its antecedents. 

In “Going Dutch,” the reigning, interim commanding officer of the base who Col. Quinn has come to replace is, wait for it, his estranged daughter (Taylor Misiak)!

Thus, the show veers into a conflict between the two that stems from his physical and emotional neglect of her throughout her life.

She happens to be the architect of the base’s laxity in all things, which means father and daughter are adversaries. 

For me, their scenes together detracted from the rest of the show. This examination of their relationship seemed out of place.

This show’s best moments are its scenes of broad, physical comedy such as when various enlistees act like clueless morons and one scene in Episode One when one of them accidentally crashes through a glass door.

I raised the question about the last service comedy on TV in this blog’s first sentence because I could not remember if we have had any of these recently.  I even stumped Google AI Overview with this question, to which the system had no answer. 

Using my own intelligence (such as it is), I could only think of service-comedy titles from decades ago -- basically up to and including “M*A*S*H.” That can’t be right, can it? 

“GoingDutch” premieres Thursday, January 2, at 9:30 p.m. Easter