Joey… man does it suck. Let’s take a lesson in theological history to put this into perspective.
The world’s first recorded crap spinoff came after The Old Testament, when God thought He was onto a bit of a winner with all the Adam and Eve stuff, and wanted to continue with it.
However, Eve wasn’t happy with the setup, complaining about the higher billing that Adam got, so she left. God decided that the next sidekick for Adam would be a wisecracking cartoon detective giraffe named DJ Bangbang.
Adam and DJ Bangbang weren’t really as popular as Adam and Eve, and so they were quietly retired and replaced with Jesus. And so, Friends became Joey.
History is littered with other rubbish spinoffs. Mangled wreckages of old successes are everywhere, from the ‘hilarious’ comedy of watching a one-armed man washing up in Robin’s Nest (following on from Man About The House) to the tragic, confused look on Peter Cook‘s face during every second of Supergirl.
And now Joey. After doing rubbishly in America, ratings are starting to wilt in the UK too. But why?
In Friends, Joey was the most cartoon-like character. This meant that whenever the others were in the middle of an emotional crisis, Joey would come in and somehow choke on his shoelaces. Light and shade, baby. Light and shade.
If these antics alone were stretched out to fill a 25 minute sitcom, the result would be outright disturbing, the equivilent of watching Edith Bowman dressed as Hitler on the seafront in Seaton Carew.
So, wisely, a supporting cast has been brought in. Problem is, they uniformly suck.
There is the Chandler replacement, Joey’s nerdy nephew. Except he’s too blandly pretty to be taken seriously.
And his neighbour, an unhappily married woman, is just as bad. Nobody can decide if she is Joey’s love interest or not, so she’s staying hugely underwritten until someone makes their mind up.
That is the problem of the whole show – everyone tries so hard, but nobody knows what to do with it.
hecklerspray wants to like Joey but we balked at the news that sage-like American TV execs have extended the shitfest for another year.
But in a world where the incredible Arrested Development is in danger of being scrapped, there isn’t much hope for poor stupid Joey.
Maybe it’s time to bring DJ Bangbang off the bench.