Millen Baird, Ginette McDonald and Toby Sharpe in The Lonely Hearts Motel, for Three's Comedy Pilot Week. Photo / Supplied
Millen Baird, Ginette McDonald and Toby Sharpe in The Lonely Hearts Motel, for Three's Comedy Pilot Week. Photo / Supplied
Embarking on a television pilot (industry speak for the first episode of a potential series) can be a vicious business.
As American actress Natalie Morales told Vulture earlier this year, the whole process is like "going on a first date and being forced to take the wedding photos, but then someone else decides if you actually got married". Ouch.
But a seemingly kinder, gentler version of this concept is currently being embraced over at Three with its inaugural Comedy Pilot Week, an opportunity for viewers to check out five fresh potential sitcoms. With the public encouraged to voice their opinions about each pilot episode via social media, their feedback will help determine which of the shows will be picked up for a full series in 2019.
Comedy Pilot Week kicked off with Mean Mums. Photo / Supplied
The experiment kicked off on Sunday night with Mean Mums, South Pacific Pictures' take on the battles parents wage amongst themselves during school drop-off.
Morgana O'Reilly plays single mum Jess, who finds herself at odds with super-mum Heather, played to passive-aggressive perfection by Anna Jullienne.
Jullienne gets to deliver some of the best lines of the episode as she discusses her daughter's hybrid Paleo-Keto diet and explains why she's pushing her 5-year-old in a buggy: "It's cross country today. Cinnamon needs to rest her quads."
However, these flashes of brilliance are lost in a wave of parenting stereotypes, which I'd be loath to go back for a second helping of. It also doesn't help that the protagonists reach a truce of sorts by the end of the pilot. So much for the "mean" in these mums.
Nick Rado, Michelle Blundell and Tarun Mohanbhai in Sidelines. Photo / Supplied
Monday night, meanwhile, featured a pilot double-header, with Sidelines, an unremarkable show about parents reluctantly forced together every Saturday to watch their children play soccer (the struggle is real), followed by the much more promising The Lonely Hearts Motel, the brainchild of husband and wife team, Millen Baird and Siobhan Marshall.
Baird stars as the eccentric Roy, who runs a dodgy Palmerston North motel alongside his mum, played by living legend Ginette McDonald.
While Baird steals every scene he's in (which is basically all of them), I also loved a couple of the motel's permanent patrons, played by Fasitua Amosa and Angella Dravid. In fact, the entire cast does a great job delivering some deliciously dark humour.
I also adored last night's Golden Boy, the pilot produced by MediaWorks and directed by Jackie van Beek.
Hayley Sproull in Golden Boy, for Three's Comedy Pilot Week. Photo / Supplied
Hayley Sproull leads its high-profile cast, playing Mitch, a wannabe big city journalist who's back living in her small hometown and struggling with the attention being lavished upon her All Black brother, Tama (played by James Rolleston).
Other cast members include Rawiri Paratene, Ingrid Park, Chris Parker and Angella Dravid (in her second appearance of the week). Kim Crossman also charms in her role as Tama's fiancée Lisa, while Dean O'Gorman plays 'Aussie Dave', a man who moved to New Zealand when he was six and likes to drink Shiraz by the handle.
Finally, tonight sees the screening of Māngere Vice, which wins points for the best title - but not much else.
Mangere Vice, for Three's Comedy Pilot Week. Photo / Supplied
Featuring street-smart Detective Robbie Kīngi (Cohen Holloway) and straitlaced Detective Povi Va'a (Iaheto Ah Hi), it's a buddy cop show set on the mean streets of south Auckland, and right from its very far-fetched beginning, the show is just a bit... silly.
Rising star Ana Scotney is a welcome addition as an undercover police officer (although she plays a much funnier part in Golden Boy), while the always wonderful Rachel House is a definite highlight in her role as The Chief.
For what it's worth, I've decided to split my Comedy Pilot Week vote between Golden Boy and The Lonely Hearts Motel.
While I found Golden Boy to be the most fun, I struggle to see how the story they've set up is going to stretch to a full series. The Lonely Hearts Motel, on the other hand, has great potential for a quirky, ongoing story filled with characters I really would like to see more of.
Whether or not my two picks get the green light for a full series remains to be seen, but it does seem a shame to consign either of them to the pilot scrap heap.
Māngere Vice airs tonight at 8.30pm on Three. The earlier Comedy Pilot Week episodes are available on ThreeNow.
