Nice guys finish first
Andy Barker P.I. a decent sitcom
KERRI WOLOSZYN STAFF
PHOTO CREDIT: JUSTIN LUBIN / NBC UNIVERSAL
Andy Richter deserves to be in a good, solid show. After being in the good, solid and completely avoided Andy Richter Controls the Universe and the bad, terrible and completely avoided Quintuplets, the talented former Late Night with Conan O’Brien sidekick is in need of a hit. Richter is a funny, likeable guy who looks like a perpetually sour-faced toddler. And in Andy Barker P.I., yet another NBC attempt at reimagining the sitcom, Richter plays a funny, likeable family man who is content to spend his leisure time doing some gardening or watching Judging Amy.
Andy Barker P.I. revolves around the deceptively safe world of its titular hero. The show begins with Andy starting a new job as a personal accountant. Much to his surprise, his new office, located in a hilariously populated mini-mall, once housed the private investigative service of one Lew Staziak (Fargo’s brilliant Harve Presnell). Andy eventually seeks out Lew after a femme fatale dressed in red presents herself in Andy’s office saying that her supposedly dead husband is still alive. Lew turns out to be a snarky, spry and extremely helpful senior citizen sleuth who is spending his twilight years in an old folks’ home. The case turns out to bear a striking resemblance to the one in Roman Polanski’s Chinatown.
The mini-mall employees are also eager to help Andy after he decides that he really does enjoy solving crimes. Video-store owner Simon (Tony Hale, who played Buster in Arrested Development) is just plain bored but his expert knowledge of both gangster movies and D-grade schlock comes to Andy’s aid. Wally, the restaurant owner, is also a surveillance junkie who videotapes everything inside his restaurant and in the parking lot of the mall.
The first four episodes of the show revolve around simplistic and relatively inconsequential crimes: someone is selling “crap” chicken to Wally; a couple of thugs steal Andy’s laptop; a rather large, smelly, yet inexplicably attractive acquaintance of Andy’s may have been murdered. What the show lacks in complex mystery it makes up for in goofy charm and heart. Despite the fact that many of the mysteries can be solved by the viewer in the first couple of minutes, the show is smart enough never to let the cases go on for too long. The man-child humour is never too dumb and never mean-spirited.
One of the most surprisingly enjoyable things about the show is the fact that Andy, a likable guy who likes his accounting job, finds something else in his life that he can become passionate about. And it seems that Andy’s passion for his investigations is infectious. Although Andy’s wife (Ellen’s helium-voiced Clea Lewis) might sigh and groan when Andy is a bit late coming home from work, she is also eager to help search for clues and finds his sleuthing sexy. The accidental investigations of Andy gives nice, bored people something to look forward to.
And hopefully an audience will also look forward to Andy’s misadventures. NBC has smartly placed the show in its Thursday night comedy block that already includes untraditional and hilarious sitcoms like The Office and 30 Rock. And hopefully, like these shows, Andy Barker will continue to improve through subsequent episodes.
Andy Barker P.I. is a good, solid show and that is something for which I’m sure both Andy’s would be proud.
