Network: ABC; Genre: Comedy, Cop; Content Rating: TV-14 (language, adult content, and implicit sexual content); Available: DVD; Perspective: Cult Classic (star range: 1 - 5);
Seasons Reviewed: Complete Series (2 seasons)
When, as a network, you sign a comedian to a sitcom deal you usually know what you're going to get - a traditional multi-camera sitcom, usually a family comedy, but maybe an office comedy, about the person's life, in which the star is cast in the most flattering possible light. So you have to feel just a little bit sorry for ABC who surely had no idea what to do when faced with Dennis Leary and Peter Tolan's "The Job", a hard to identify single-camera comedy, shot like "NYPD Blue", about a group of bumbling New York police detectives in which the star, Mike McNeil (Leary) is a drinking, smoking, lying, violent, pill-popping, adulterous, infectiously caustic and completely unredeemable character.
"The Job" is an unquestionable cult classic and the kind of thing that deserves to spawn legions of fans. It is unlike anything you will see on network TV with a juxtaposition of comedy in the rigid template of a traditional crime series you won't see anywhere due to how strictly serious networks treat their crime shows. Leary and Tolan have a sharp, unique and fully committed vision for the series. They are doing something different, they are challenging the audience, and they are really daring us to follow his character. These guys know the sitcom and want to break every convention and push it as far as they can. I have heaps of respect for "The Job". Heaps.
Much of what makes "The Job" so conceptually unique also pulls against it as a fully satisfying product. McNeil is an archetypal anti-hero. We love Tony Soprano because is a complexly layered anti-hero. McNeil has no complexity, he is just an A-hole who cheats on his wife (Wendy Makkena) for no reason and jealously spies on his girlfriend, Toni (Karyn Parsons). "The Job" gives us absolutely no reason to pull for McNiel, at all. We wait for the next shoe to drop and maybe see him get his comeuppance. Worse, is the way the rest of the characters just stand around like bowling pins waiting for him to knock them over. That said, Bill Nunn is frequently funny as McNiel's hard-luck, wife-whipped partner "Pip" whose attempts to do the right thing consistently go punished.
Most of the respectably cast throw themselves head-long into this endeavor. From an ensemble of Diane Farr, Lenny Clarke and Adam Ferrara (both in goofy over-the-top sitcom mode), John Ortiz and Keith David (who has given the same hilarious what's-the-matter-with-you performance since "There's Something About Mary"). Their characters are given the attention that would be satisfactory in a sitcom, but for a show that is so heavily reliant on dialog driven gags and character bits they are underdeveloped. Leary and Tolan bread-and-butter is to give their characters trivial, selfish nonsense to argue over amid the serious nature of their job (which for the most part is only mentioned in passing, although severed appendage stories are plentiful). They have taken something that would otherwise be called "Seinfeldian" and made it completely and totally their own style, stamped and patented with this show.
I've actually watched "The Job" twice now. Once during it's broadcast and again, in it's entirely on DVD and I still can't into the show. The self-contained 22 minute running time doesn't do the series justice. The stories are tiny, resolved in maybe 3 scenes and serve as a clothesline for the more fun conversational bits. They feel stripped down, emptied out and lacking substance.
"The Job" does eventually pay off its dividends in a final 3 episode story arc that begins with McNeil telling Toni's parents a spectacular lie. The series ends on a satisfying note with a gripping and perfectly constructed montage that puts every character in their rightful place. It seems to have found itself, a well balanced rhythm, and a multi-episode story construction that does the characters justice. And then the show was canceled.
* * * / 5
