The Year in Television: Our Three Favorite New Comedies

This is the second in a multi-part series, The Year in Television 2011.

2011 was a great year for comedy. As established hits like Modern Family, Parks & Recreation and Glee continued to grow creatively, a few new comedies joined our already crowded must-see lists. (We watch too much television around here!)

From the urban jungle of Chicago, to apartments in Los Angeles and the suburbs of New York, these three shows let us spend time with characters that could be over the top and yet somehow still remind us of people we’ve known in life.

The cast of Happy Endings

Audiences have discovered ABC’s Happy Endings, and we are all more fortunate for that, because this dark horse improved steadily since a brief run last season. It now appears to be on the verge of becoming the next great breakout comedy. If you’re not watching, by all means catch up with past episodes online so you’ll be up to speed when new episodes return in January. It’s that good.

The earliest scripts focused on the fallout of two characters’ disaster of a wedding, but quickly moved on from the tension between formerly engaged couple Alex and Dave. Now, if anything, the show gives greater time to the other relationships among their circle of friends. And unlike many other ensemble sitcoms, you can believe these people might actually be friends. They aren’t just setting up punchlines to make us laugh. Instead, they talk like people who are trying to make each other laugh.

Of particular note is the friendship between Max and Penny (Adam Pally and Casey Wilson). They were boyfriend and girlfriend once, but he’s since come out, and she can’t seem to find a date. They mix shared traits along with some major differences and we get to see a pretty realistic and funny interplay on friendships between gay men and straight women.

The cast of New Girl

The Fox comedy New Girl became a hit thanks largely to star Zooey Deschanel and a potent viral marketing campaign. At first glance, it promised a comedy about a cute, socially inept young woman who charms her new roommates into rescuing her from the awkward situations she creates for herself, especially as she tries to figure out dating.

The pilot was endearing (especially for those who find Ms. Deschanel to be adorable), and that first episode explained how she came to share an apartment with roommates. But a weak follow-up episode showed how easily the show could go off track and become an extended version of a viral video with a pet cat falling off a table – after a few minutes, qualities you found adorable become quite irritating.

The good news is, New Girl improved markedly after the initial missteps. The series now relies a lot less on Deschanel’s bug-eyed and sheepish mugging in uncomfortable situations and much more on the roommates’ reactions to her. It’s now their stories we enjoy most. We’ve explored their lives before they met Deschanel – which is a particularly nice progression from the pilot where their primary function was to notice how Deschanel is such a special little snowflake of a lass.

Max Greenfield’s roommate has been a stand-out since the New Girl premiere thanks to a running gag where he agreed to put a dollar in a “douche jar” every time he came close to behaving like a smarmy jerk – and that was often. As we've gotten to know Schmidt better, we see why he’s the one slipping all those greenbacks in the jar. He doesn't understand people and doesn't work well with others. In other words, a typical roommate.

Jane Levy and Jeremy Sisto in Suburgatory

Jeremy Sisto has been a favorite of ours since his Six Feet Under days, and it looks like he’s finally got a winning role in Suburgatory, the wackiest new comedy of the season. Sisto and his gorgeous co-star Jane Levy (in her second major acting role after wowing us on Shameless) play father and daughter in a relationship that’s notably mature and supportive.

The family’s move from the big city to suburbia was inspired by a foolish moment of sex panic (dad found a condom in his daughter’s room) but fortunately there’s a parent-child bond on Suburgatory we’ve seen all too rarely on TV. There’s tons of respect between these two, and their relationship skips past the TV cliché by making dad a true parent, and not just a friend to his daughter. Of course, the real "danger" to his daughter is not the big city condom, it’s the new neighborhood.

The decision to move to the suburbs was not well thought out. Expecting a wholesome culture where he could raise his daughter, the family instead finds a community filled with neurotics. One neighbor suggests altering her daughter's miniskirt to raise the hemline to make the girl more popular, and another fights with her daughter who wants to wear an extremely conservative dress.

Suburgatory features some fine acting from a number of TV character actors, all performers with a history of stealing scenes while in supporting roles. When it debuted, the suburban satire felt a little too familiar, right down to the over-saturated color scheme. (We’re guessing Suburgatory’s producers got tips from the Desperate Housewives team.) As Suburgatory continued, the suburban dysfunction has become less prominent and we’ve gotten to know the supporting characters better. If the show hasn’t quite hit its stride yet, it certainly looks like it's headed in the right direction. And in the meantime, there's always the sexy Parker Young to distract us!