It seems lately that the cast of Friends have had better luck with their shows. Courtney Cox’s Cougar Town and Matt LeBlanc’s Episodes have each done very well on their respected networks.
Matthew Perry may soon add Mr. Sunshine to that list if it can continue to improve. The first few episodes were kind of boring and didn’t provide many laughs, but it is getting better with each episode.
Perry stars as Ben Donovan, the operations manager at the Sunshine Center. The character is somewhat like Chandler, only Ben is more self-centered and provides the type of rude humor that works for Perry.
There are four other main characters. The best one is Crystal Cohen, played by Allison Janney, who is the owner of the arena and is very erratic. She really only cares for herself and is usually up to something crazy.
She has a son named Roman, played by Nate Torrance, who she hasn’t ever really known that well. He is kind of an idiot who got a job at the arena. I didn’t like him much at first, as I thought he would be completely stupid, but he has gotten better.
The final two leads are easily the weakest of the bunch. Alice, played by Andrea Anders, is the marketing director and used to be Ben’s friend with benefits.
Currently, however, she is dating a former basketball star, Alonzo, played by James Lesure, who is supposed to be the perfect person. He is always donating money or running some charity event or something else incredibly thoughtful.
These two characters provide some good moments, but they are just not as good as the other cast members.
A few of the minor characters are worth noting as well. The people in the office are terrified of Ben’s assistant, Heather, because she lit a former boyfriend on fire and the arena’s mascot is always wandering around the office.
Actually, the mascot was in one of the main stories this week. He usually just gets told to go home, but this week, he asked Alonzo if he could store some of his things in his office.
It turned out to be tons of weird things and after a while, he started having poker games played there. It resulted in a very funny final scene where Alonzo chased him through the arena.
The main story of the episode involved Ben meeting a woman named Vivian, played by Lizzy Caplan, who wanted nothing but meaningless sex.
Ben realized that they were both the same and started to like her. After opening up to her, she rejects him.
The last story with Roman was about him dealing with the absence of his mother. It was the weakest of the episode and unfortunately, Janney wasn’t that good this week. That may be because she was barely in the episode, but she was still not that good.
She hooked up with some extreme biker and forgot about Roman’s request to take him to the dentist. In the end, Roman told her how he felt and she told him she would do better.
Despite the weak story, this was one of the best episodes of the series and helped it to improve. Ben is beginning to grow up and I was glad to see that he wanted more in a relationship.
It may not have started that strong, but I hope that ABC can give it a chance. They let Cox’s show grow, and that worked out, so why not Perry’s?
College Couch Potato Grade: B-
