The New Normal: "Pilot" Review

Glee/American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy's new comedy is about a gay couple searching for a surrogate to carry their child. But are these donor eggs rotten?

Matt Fowler Avatar

Updated: Jun 16, 2023 6:24pm UTC

Advance Review

: With one Utah NBC affiliate already refusing to carry Ryan Murphy and Ali Adler's The New Normal, it's clear that this new, lightly charming comedy has an uphill battle during an election year. Murphy isn't exactly stirring the pot here, but one can tell, just from the title alone, that this series is going to get top-spin volleyed back and forth in this country's increasingly divisive political climate.Debuting on NBC next Tuesday (but you can watch it via Hulu now - see below) The New Normal is a sweet show, but it never quite rises up beyond that. Justin Bartha (The Hangover, National Treasure) and Andrew Rannells (Broadway's The Book of Mormon, HBO's Girls) play David and Bryan, a gay couple who desperately want to become parents. Georgia King plays Goldie Clemmons, a struggling, single mom who desperately wants to turn her life around for the sake of her daughter, Shania. It's the story of disenfranchised people working together to help each other move forward with their life plans. Neither side can realize their dreams on their own so Goldie will lend the boys her uterus, and act as the surrogate mother for their child, while they shell out 35,000ドル to kick-start her career in law.

The trouble here is that the story is overly saccharine, and while "warm and fuzzy" might work for some, the "funny" just isn't here. That being said, it's Ryan Murphy - the man behind Nip/Tuck, Glee and American Horror Story. So there are a few funny quips and one-liners. But overall it's still a show that feels okay, in 2012, with using the line "Am I being punk'd?" with no sense of irony. With only a few bumps in the road, the path leading David and Bryan to Goldie unfolds predictably, leaving us with a well-meaning, but tepid pilot.

Despite Goldie's penchant for sticking with a loser guy, who she catches cheating and then breaks up with at the top of the episode, I actually left this pilot having a hard time understanding how she wasn't able to get her "life on track." As precocious TV kids go, Shania (played by Bebe Wood) is the most understanding, well-adjusted, independent-thinking daughter a single mom could ever wish for. Hell, Goldie could have held two or three jobs, left Shania at home, and everything could have turned out great. There's even a scene when Goldie says "Sorry" to Shania only to be met with "You don't ever have to say that to me." Holy hell, this kid isn't even human!

And that sort of speaks to this show. Everything is sort of glossy and cute. I can't really knock The New Normal for not feeling real enough; it's a TV show. But for a show that's about how differences can ultimately unite us, everyone fits a little too neatly into precontrived packages. Plus, some of it - namely an "abnormal is the new normal" scene that involves David and Bryan sitting in a park filled with non-traditional families - is way too on-the-nose.

Adding a bit of built-in outrageous opposition to the proceedings is Goldie's grandma, Jane (Ellen Barkin), whose purpose is to say mildly-bigoted things designed to wind up in Entertainment Weekly's TV Sound Bites section. By the end of the episode though, we discover the Inception-level reason for Jane's cantankerous disapproval. And it actually helped her seem more like a character than a caricature. But I feel as though, going forward, Jane will always "reset" just in time for the beginning of the next episode, making any catharsis she might experience a moot venture. Still, she carries more than her share of the "zings" and offers up the only crunchy part in this soft, comedic offering.The New Normal's pilot will air Monday, September 10th at 10pm on NBC, before the series premieres in its regular timeslot on Tuesday, September 11th. It can be seen on Hulu now (see embed above).

Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and IGN. WARNING: No Nudity!

Where to Watch

The New Normal: Series Premiere Review

6.5

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Official IGN Review

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