20. Ben and Kate (Fox)
On the surface, Fox’s barely watched, but thoroughly enjoyable Ben and Kate doesn’t offer much that you haven’t seen before. It features a mismatched pair trying to raise a kid, a couple of inseparable and wacky best friends, and a tone light enough to knock over with a feather. What Ben and Kate has going for it, is that its take on all those familiar tropes happens to be funnier, and more sincere, than anyone else trying to do the same.
Along with former Community execs Neil Goldman and Garrett Donovan, showrunner Dana Fox finds a sweet middle ground between goofy, and endearing, with the warm relationship between the titular brother and sister (the delightful Nat Faxon, and Dakota Johnson) giving the show enough emotional credit to let it indulge in rompy suburban capers, get-rich-quick schemes, and good-natured monkeying around. Veteran comedienne Lucy Punch, and breakout talent Echo Kellum round out a fantastic cast, in the year’s hardest to hate, but easiest to miss (and likely already doomed) new sitcom.
- Best Episodes: “Pilot,” “Scaredy Kate”
19. Comedy Bang! Bang! (IFC)
The self-aware charms of IFC’s Comedy Bang! Bang! would be too cool for school if host Scott Aukerman’s part-scripted, part-improvised talk show didn’t capture the same aggressively weird, uniquely funny, and always unpredictable spirit of the podcast on which it is based. With the help of freestyling keyboard comic Reggie Watts, Aukerman mixed bizarre celebrity interviews with offbeat sketches, like a faux movie trailer that takes a man wishing he were never born to a horrifying extreme.
The real star appearances came from the lesser-known actors and standups currently changing the comedy landscape, the best being Paul F. Tompkins, who got to put a face to his beloved podcast impression of the psychotic, and self-promoting Cake Boss (Cake Boss!). Let’s just hope that the season finale, in which Reggie disintegrates Scott by pouring a Big Gulp on him (it’s complicated), doesn’t mark the end of Comedy Bang! Bang!’s defiantly absurd foray into television.
- Best Episodes: “Amy Poehler Wears a Black Jacket & Grey Pants,” “Michael Cera Wears a Blue Denim Shirt & Red Pants”
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