‘Leanne' may be a conventional sitcom, but it's good company

Los Angeles Times

2 days ago

The practice of building a situation comedy around a stand-up comedian is hallowed television practice, going back to Jack Benny and Danny Thomas and running forward through Bob Newhart, Roseanne Barr, Jerry Seinfeld, Ellen DeGeneres, George Lopez and Martin Lawrence, among others. These 'based on the comedy' shows are predicated on the not unreasonable and frequently demonstrable idea that the star comes with a built-in audience — the show and the character usually share their name — and that a person who is good at telling stories onstage might be a good fit for the multi-camera TV stage. This hasn't been true of every comic given a show; even someone as reliably hilarious as John Mulaney was an uneasy fit for the form.
'Leanne,' which premieres Thursday on Netflix, stars Leanne Morgan, a 25-year overnight sensation from Knoxville, Tenn., whose star rose above the cultural horizon when she was already most of her way through her fifties. (She is 59 now.) Co-creator Chuck Lorre (with Morgan and Susan McMartin), the man behind 'Cybill,' 'Dharma & Greg,' 'Two and a Half Men' and 'The Big Bang Theory,' earlier built 'Grace Under Fire' around another Southern stand-up, Brett Butler. The premise here is essentially: newly single mature woman in a sitcom.
If the people around her are mostly types into which the players pour themselves, Morgan is more a person into which a character has been inserted. TV Leanne is not exactly Real Leanne, who is to all appearances happily married; is on tour through the year (under the title 'Just Getting Started'); has starred in a Netflix special, 'I'm Every Woman'; published a book, 'What in the World?! A Southern Woman's Guide to Laughing at Life's Unexpected Curveballs and Beautiful Blessings'; and, obviously, is starring in this situation comedy. Other than living in Knoxville, having children and grandchildren and representing someone more or less her own age, she is not playing herself; yet there's an honesty to her performance, possibly not unrelated to her being new at this. (Her only previous screen credit is a supporting role in this year's Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon meh Prime Video rom-com 'You're Cordially Invited.') Even the hackiest jokes sound less hacky in her mouth, perhaps because she doesn't strain to sell them. Her delivery tends toward the soft and musical, and that she is wearing her own accent, which, to a Californian's ear, plays charming variations on vowels, is all to the good.
As we begin, Leanne, the character, is primarily defined, like negative space, by the figures around her. There is a husband, Bill (Ryan Stiles) who has just left her for a younger woman, an event so fresh that only her sister, Carol (Kristen Johnston), knows; single, twice-divorced, up for fun, Carol regards herself as sophisticated because she once lived in Chicago. Daughter Josie (Hannah Pilkes) is a little wild, but not particularly troublesome; in any case, no one pays her much attention. Son Tyler (Graham Rogers), upon whom Leanne dotes, works for his father, who owns three RV emporiums — accounting for the nice house that's the series' main set — and comes equipped with a mostly off-screen pregnant wife, Nora (Annie Gonzalez); he feels oppressed, but perhaps he's just tired. Leanne's parents, John (Blake Clark) and Margaret (Celia Weston) are around for grousing and goofiness, respectively. Across the street lives Mary (Jayma Mays), the embodiment of nosy propriety in a town that can't keep a secret.
Leanne recalls how back in the '80s she was 'cute' and desirable 'because I had hormones, and hair spray, and a VW bug with a pull-out cassette player.' (This is also a motif in Morgan's stand-up.) Now she's careful and proper, and can barely bring herself to chastely kiss the nice FBI agent, Andrew (Tim Daly), who wanders into the show as a potential romance. (Morgan said on the 'Today' show that Daly was in fact the first man she'd kissed apart from her husband in 33 years. Art and life.) One hopes he won't turn out to be a murderer, which would 80% be the case if this were a mystery. But I reckon we're safe.
Younger viewers who find themselves here may be put off by jokes about hot flashes, pelvic exercises, enlarged prostrates and such and perhaps especially by sex jokes in the mouths of old — well, older — people. (I feel you there, youngsters.) The representative demographic may chuckle knowingly, or not.
Here is Leanne, flirting with Andrew in their first encounter.
Andrew (swallowing some pills): 'I had to have a thing and now I have to take these things every four hours or I might have to have ... another thing.'
Leanne (sweetly): 'I got things. My purse is a little Walgreens with a cute strap.'
Every fourth or fifth joke has the air of having been hammered out on an anvil, and a few might have been better left in the smithery. Yet I like this show, in no small part but not entirely because I like Morgan — the way she says 'spaseba, that's Russian for thank you' to a bartender handing her a vodka, and sings a bit of the Human League's 'Don't You Want Me' to herself.
The company, which supports the star with veterans of 'Third Rock From the Sun,' 'The Drew Carey Show' and 'Wings,' is generally good company, and I'm happy to see that 'Leanne' has a broadcast-style 18 episode season, time being an American sitcom's best friend. (I would give it a few episodes to make up your mind.)
Apart from the star herself, the show is as conventional as can be. A character embarking on a new chapter is, of course, the starting point of every third sitcom ever made, but given that many of us have either had to start new chapters or wish we could, it's a suitable way to start.