SIT DOWN, SHUT UP: That Title Is Just Begging For It

Remember a couple of years ago when Aaron Sorkin, multiple Emmy winner, created Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and staffed it with Emmy winner Bradley Whitford and Emmy nominee Matthew Perry? And everyone got all excited about it, and then it wasn’t nearly as good as previous Sorkin efforts like Sports Night and The West Wing? And people were so offended by this they handed out pitchforks and torches (or, as Chi McBride would suggest, plastic forks and glowsticks) and called for a UN Commission on Studio 60 atrocities and demanded their money back for TV that they got for free? When, in retrospect, the show swung between a little annoying and sometimes okay (with the occasional terrific Christmas episode) and wasn’t actually an affront to humanity, and in the end it was probably just something a little lesser that Sorkin needed to get out of his system before going on to better projects?

Fast forward to 2012, when we’ll think back to multiple Emmy winner Mitchell Hurwitz (creator of the brilliant Arrested Development) adapting a popular Australian comedy into a new animated show about a hapless high school called Sit Down, Shut Up, partnering with multiple Emmy winner Josh Weinstein, who wrote episodes of The Simpsons like “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” and “Lisa versus Malibu Stacey”. We’ll remember them staffing it with genius Emmy nominees with AD connections like Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Henry Winkler. We’ll recall their adding the Emmy-nominated wonder that is Kristin Chenoweth. And we’ll remember coming to the conclusion that maybe Hurwitz and company just needed to get this out of their systems before they could move on to better projects. In the future, when this happens, we won’t look back on the show and say, “Eh, it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t as bad as we thought it was at the time.” No, we’ll look back and remember that Sit Down, Shut Up was so bad it made us wish Fox had kept Do Not Disturb on the air instead. When we saw–and were appalled by–the pilot, we wanted to give it another week before passing judgment, just out of loyalty to the many talented people involved. But it’s…it’s really bad, full of grotesque and dirty jokes that just aren’t funny and are set to flat, unattractive animation. We love so many of the people involved with Sit Down, Shut Up so much that we’re going to resist the urge to tell them to sit down and shut up, but…we’ll catch them in their next outings, thanks.

Wrapping Up the Upfronts

Well, upfront week has come and gone and what do we have to show for it? An unusually short, not terribly exciting list of new shows premiering in the upcoming season. And a bunch of network-penned blurbs meant to get us tingly with anticipation of said new shows. Are you feeling tingly? Yeah, me neither.

In fairness, it is kind of hard to get worked up about a description in a press release. Which is why, of course, the networks always come to the upfronts with a big, splashy presentation, a bunch of smiling celebrities, and–most importantly–video clips promoting their new shows. Fortunately for us, the good folks over at TV Week have collected all the various clips and trailers together so we can all get started deciding which new shows look good enough to be Season Pass worthy.

The ABC upfront videos offer up a sneak peek at The Goode Family, Life on Mars, Opportunity Knocks and the eighth season of Scrubs. CBS gives us a glimpse of Eleventh Hour, The Ex List, Harper’s Island, Project Gary, The Mentalist and Worst Week. The CW videos include four clips from Surviving the Filthy Rich and three clips of Stylista (but sadly none of 90210). And finally, Fox serves up the previously mentioned scene from Dollhouse, as well as a couple of clips from Fringe (although for the full, fully creepy trailer you should hop over here), a look at The Cleveland Show and three clips each of Do Not Disturb and Sit Down, Shut Up.

So, after watching all of these clips, which shows will I be saving TiVo space for? Fox is the big winner this year with three shows I’m actively looking forward to from three talented creators with an excellent track record in television: Fringe (pictured above), Dollhouse and Sit Down, Shut Up. ABC’s The Goode Family seems a safe bet since Mike Judge can pretty much always make me laugh. CBS’s Harper’s Island doesn’t so much look good as like it might be a scary good time, but everything else on CBS’s schedule looks, frankly, really really bad. And as for the CW… well, let’s just say if the network doesn’t survive until next year’s upfronts I won’t go into mourning.

Oh, and let’s not forget NBC, who brilliantly made their non-upfront upfront presentation a month ago. Oops, too late, I’ve already forgotten all of NBC’s new shows.

ARRESTED Cast Reunite for Hurwitz Comedy

Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz has lured several of the show’s former cast members to his new animated comedy Sit Down, Shut Up. AD alumni Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Henry Winkler will all provide voices for the Fox pilot.

Sit Down, Shut Up centers on a group of high school staffers who find themselves inconvenienced by their students and irritated by each other as they consistently place their own personal agendas and problems ahead of the educational needs of their students. Sounds like the perfect setting for Hurwitz’s scathing wit.