Better Off Ted: The "Holy ^$#@ Moment"

After a couple of weeks, ABC's Better Off Ted seems to have hit its stride. It's weird and quirky, sort of in an Arrested Development style. It's not must-see yet, but it certainly stands out in a fairly bland lineup of comedies. This week's episode had a subplot about racism that was edgy, hilarious, and made you take notice.

My favorite line from the episode?

"We enjoy varieties of people...even though we can't eat them."

Better Off Ted just had what, since this is a family column, I'll refer to as "The Holy %$#@ Moment," or HSM for the purposes of discussion.

The HSM is something that every new series seems to strive for early in their run, the one moment where notice is served that the show will take chances. A show's HSM is the moment that people will take to their friends, and ask if they've seen.

Maybe the greatest HSM ever occurred at the end of the first episode of The Shield. After sixty minutes of watching Vic Mackey define himself as a cop willing to skirt the moral edge to get results, the episode ended with Mackey cold-bloodedly shooting one of his partners. Not only did it cause viewers to utter the first 2/3rds of the HSM, it also made you unsure what to expect from that point on. Anything was possible, and that HSM drove the plot all the way to the series finale.

Recently, Trust Me and Brothers and Sisters both had characters played by notable actors die on the first episode. No one is safe.

Although FX's Dirt only lasted two seasons, what happened to Rick Fox's character in the first episode was enough to ensure I kept tuning in to see what happened next.

Didn't see it? Here's a hint, it wasn't death. It as something probably worse to a pro basketball player.

Even comedies like Seinfeld had those moments, although obviously quieter ones. After "The Chinese Restaurant" and "The Parking Garage," you knew that you weren't guaranteed Seinfeld would ever revolve around traditional boring sitcom premises and locales again.

There's just so little originality on television these days and so many choices, new shows need a hook to pull viewers in. We've been trained to expect something big and without it, we just expect we'll see the same old thing and lose attention.

 

Tonight, Better Off Ted took a chance on an edgy plotline, and earned another couple of weeks worth of viewership from me.