Partners: New Sitcom Preview

Anyone here remember the sitcom Will and Grace? The sitcom is about a gay man, Will, being best friend with a straight girl, Grace, and of course their love life..er.. mostly their being desperate that they still couldn't find that one person to spend the life with. Eventually they did, and we had a good eight seasons -and several emmys I think - watching them being funny and of course, loving.

The character Will was based on the creator himself, Max Mutchnick, who's also gay, and who's creating the show together with his best friend, David Kohan. Grace herself was based on another best friend, Janet. And now, they're back again with this sitcom, this time they're using their own story and wrote a new sitcom titled Partners.

Louis, played by Michael Urie of Ugly Betty, was a gay architect and formed a partnership with another architect fellow, Joe, starred by David Krumholtz. The two were best friends since childhood, and this could be reflected back to the two creators themselves. Louis was the gay one, like Max Mutchnick (and Michael Urie) and he had a boyfriend named Wyatt, handsomely played by none other than Brandon Routh (He was Superman once before Henry Cavill, and the movie was so bad it got mocked recently in TED movie from Seth Macfarlene). Joe was the straight one, and his girlfriend, Ali,  was played by Sophia Bush of One Tree Hill.

The pilot was a bit stereotypical, Louis was the typical gay, and Joe was the understanding one. It was funny every now and then, but other than the fact that the guys were best friends since childhood, nothing had amused me more. Seeing the couple dynamics but still able to making some space for each of their lovers, I think this is new. I mean, some of my friends complained that their friends were not spending much time with them again once they had a boyfriend/girlfriend. The situation even got raised a bit in TED movie, when Mila Kunis had Mark Warlbherg chose between her or the teddy bear. Apart from that, no other conflict foreseen in the movie, IMHO, but because this was only the pilot we're talking about, I think I would stick around for more episodes too come.

Meanwhile, enjoy  the snapshot of cuteness down below.

Joe 
How do you deal with Louis? I mean, doesn't he drive you crazy?

Wyatt
Well, that's easy. No one in the world loves like Louis.
I mean, I question a lot of his decisions, but one thing I never question is his heart.
And if you keep that in mind, you can forgive all the other stuff.

*

Louis
Ali, listen to me.
You've got to marry him  because I need to know if I'm not gonna be around to take care of him, at least you will.

The New Normal Again. :D

Brian 
We are bringing a baby into the world where idiot people feel free to say and do the things they say and do trained to ignore them! That guy is not the problem.  We are the problem.

David
Well, what did you want me to do? Get in his face? I'm not that guy.

Brian
I don't know!
I'm not crying for me. I'm crying because what if that happened in front of our kid? What will we do then? Just be ashamed of who we are? What kind of message does that send to our child?  I don't want our kid to feel that. To see him or her get hurt like that, that would just kill me.
As a parent, you're supposed to protect your child. You tell them not to play in the street, and-and don't do drugs and wear a thick shea butter moisturizer at night.
But how are we supposed to protect our baby from hate?

- the new normal s01e03

What did you read there? *Gee I feel like I'm giving out an english exam, lol.
But anyway, I'm going on with this The New Normal fever - while waiting for Partners - a new sitcom by the creator of Will and Grace - to finish downloading.

This new episode felt more drama than comedy, but since I think every gay guy could almost relate to the problem and issues raised, I think we can easily forget that. You can see directly Ryan Murphy's secret formula there: the whole acceptance thing that he has done so well with Glee. Only this time I think Murphy has brought that formula with a sample of the lead couple's daily life..

I had a conversation with Mr.H over the blackberry a few months back: he told me how he never liked the gay with queenie and bitchy attitude. I told him that it's just the way the gays has been doing as some-kind of self-defense mechanism. I might be wrong on this, but my point is, like the sample we have with Brian here: how he's the typical gay (I've mentioned it before in my previous post), that some of us might consider him shallow, but once we get to know him very closely, we know that he's a nice person inside. A person with love and simple goal in life like building a nice and happy family. Isn't that what we all want?

And what I like the most is the fact that David is the typical geek; but even so he felt the pain and sadness in Brian that he would still ask: what do you want me to do? He knew he's just as helpless as Brian but he still offered that kind of rock in his shoulder to rely on... That's when you know a guy loves you - like really loves you. It's never been undivided attention or anything grand. It's never that.

The New Normal

Ryan Murphy perhaps is a genius. Or not, depending on how you view his creations. He's famously known for his plastic surgery drama Nip/Tuck - I can't bear to watch the all the gory details despite the two hot doctors as the main leads, then perhaps Popular - it was very popular indeed in my high school back then but then after season 2 it lost its soul and eventually got cancelled, then Glee - which to me is more like Popular but with Music and gay stories, then American Horror Story, then here comes the newest: The New Normal. 

The premise was simple: a couple - a gay couple is trying to have a baby and they found a goldie named Goldie with a daughter trying to start over her life after catching his husband having affair red-handed, who was willing to be a surrogate mother. . It was supposed to be a sit-com, and a few months before its premiere I think several medias have reported that there were several organizations trying to boycott this series. Well little did they know that all the controversies  indeed were good for marketing. 

So NBC picked up the series, and I had to admit that my first eyes were to Justin Bartha: He was the forgotten cast member of the wolf-pack gang in Hungover movies - the cute one in the first movie who's also the groom. Then being his couple is the queenie Andrew Rannells, the previous Broadway actor - I think - who has had several awards up his sleeve. The pilot indicated that he was the stereotypical one in the relationship: fussy, superficial, into fashions, celebs, obsessed about looks, and so on and so on. Justin Bartha himself is the geek, an OB-GYN doc who's the quieter one, and apparently, the understanding one. 

Along with the trio were Goldie's grandmother and unique daughter, also Rannells' funny assistant. Despite the witty and sassy lines about Nana's being bigot and racist, it was funny until the moment you hit the intimate convo between the two leads: they were sweet enough - not too ooey-gooey that I actually tried really hard to hold back my tears. There were so many lessons about family; for example when Goldie said that family is family and love is love, or when Rannells telling Goldie's daughter that she's unique and that trait will lead her to greatness and how her mother just loves her for who she is... And the ultimate breakdown for me was when Bartha and Rannells hitting the bar back. They realized that their youth had long been over-due. 

And it hit me hard: all the endless fun, endless party, endless sex, endless shallow things that we all do - they will all be passing-by, in a glimpse of moment. That one day we're going to wake up and realise that there are still many things in our life that we still havent done. I for one would not want to be that guy. I wanna live my life to the fullest. There's no time for craps like failed relationship. Like meaningless fights. 

So thank you again, Murphy. I dont care what critics say. I dont care if in the long run your show is going to be a disappointment. That's not the point here. I thank you for making me see what I do want in my life. And for that, I will stick to the show for a while.