Network: Fox; Genre: Improv Comedy; Content Rating: TV-PG; Perspective: Contemporary (star range: 1 - 4);
Seasons Reviewed: Series (1 season)
After graduating college without any clue what to do next, Nate (Josh Dean) moves back in with his parents and must re-adjust to drastic changes in the life he once knew. His unrequited crush, Amber (Erin Cahill), is engaged, his parents have returned to the sexual ambitiousness they had before he came along and refuse to go back now that he is back home and his friend, Dove (David Sheridan) - hasn't changed at all, and from high atop his monster truck, serves as an opposing force, pushing Nate away from responsibility and into trouble.
Creator/writer Rob Roy Thomas is synonymous with the improv comedy after Bravo's neo-classic "Significant Others", so it is a shock that "Ride" is the least amusing of the recent improv options, which include ABC's look-at-me-I'm-improv "Sons and Daughters" and Pam Brady's "The Loop" (which takes this exact set-up one surreal step further). To be honest they are all starting to blur together. "Ride" is the one where a search for a lost cat ends in the animal's death, the parent's willy-nilly decide to get divorced, but can't keep their hands off each other, and where Nate takes out a girl from work, which takes them on a night-long odyssey with Amber and Steve Moss (not to be confused with Steve Holt), through Dove's party and ending with a battle over a chair.
As in other Improv comedies, the characters all talk back-and-forth quickly, overlapping each other, like a sloppy, witless "West Wing". But "Ride", if I'm not mistake, is the first improv comedy to play directly to the slacker Generation-Y crowd that has now reached Nate's age and is facing the same identity crisis. It should be said that Bryan Fuller delved into this kernel of truth far better with his Gen-Y metaphor "Wonderfalls", but to compare the two would imply that "Ride" has a sense of creativity, intelligence and depth that it definitely does not. Still in the realm of inappropriate comparisons, "Ride" is shot in the same single-camera documentary style that "Arrested Development" and "The Office" is.
It is a simple show aiming for simple chuckles. It is aimless and dull, dragging itself to death to fill 30 minutes. With the comic credibility balancing on his shoulders, Dean does a reasonable job (in a dead-pan straight-man performance) and Cahill fits the "Dream Girl" bill. However, it may only seem that way because everyone else in the cast is jockeying to be the most annoying character in the show. The show is so phobic of touching anything real, that it draws all of these characters as broadly and loudly as possible. Between the typically child-like TV parents, the typically clueless TV crush, the typical uptight, perfect TV rival, and the typical TV brain-dead wacky cool guy who is always the source of the trouble - it is hard to choose the most offensive.
What's a TV show without an unrequited love story, so Nate has a crush on childhood crush on Amber, who, like in all these show is engaged to wealthy gentleman Steve Moss (Dan Wells). This is the only driving storyline throughout the series and you've seen it a thousand times before. As a whole, "Free Ride" has little to offer that you haven't seen in any other witless sitcom. Although thanks to the failed attempt at improv pulling the show down onto its face without a safety net, it is actually a more of a mess than any other witless sitcom. You can do better. In fact, you can do a LOT better and that show is called "Significant Others".
* / 4
Seasons Reviewed: Series (1 season)
After graduating college without any clue what to do next, Nate (Josh Dean) moves back in with his parents and must re-adjust to drastic changes in the life he once knew. His unrequited crush, Amber (Erin Cahill), is engaged, his parents have returned to the sexual ambitiousness they had before he came along and refuse to go back now that he is back home and his friend, Dove (David Sheridan) - hasn't changed at all, and from high atop his monster truck, serves as an opposing force, pushing Nate away from responsibility and into trouble.
Creator/writer Rob Roy Thomas is synonymous with the improv comedy after Bravo's neo-classic "Significant Others", so it is a shock that "Ride" is the least amusing of the recent improv options, which include ABC's look-at-me-I'm-improv "Sons and Daughters" and Pam Brady's "The Loop" (which takes this exact set-up one surreal step further). To be honest they are all starting to blur together. "Ride" is the one where a search for a lost cat ends in the animal's death, the parent's willy-nilly decide to get divorced, but can't keep their hands off each other, and where Nate takes out a girl from work, which takes them on a night-long odyssey with Amber and Steve Moss (not to be confused with Steve Holt), through Dove's party and ending with a battle over a chair.
As in other Improv comedies, the characters all talk back-and-forth quickly, overlapping each other, like a sloppy, witless "West Wing". But "Ride", if I'm not mistake, is the first improv comedy to play directly to the slacker Generation-Y crowd that has now reached Nate's age and is facing the same identity crisis. It should be said that Bryan Fuller delved into this kernel of truth far better with his Gen-Y metaphor "Wonderfalls", but to compare the two would imply that "Ride" has a sense of creativity, intelligence and depth that it definitely does not. Still in the realm of inappropriate comparisons, "Ride" is shot in the same single-camera documentary style that "Arrested Development" and "The Office" is.
It is a simple show aiming for simple chuckles. It is aimless and dull, dragging itself to death to fill 30 minutes. With the comic credibility balancing on his shoulders, Dean does a reasonable job (in a dead-pan straight-man performance) and Cahill fits the "Dream Girl" bill. However, it may only seem that way because everyone else in the cast is jockeying to be the most annoying character in the show. The show is so phobic of touching anything real, that it draws all of these characters as broadly and loudly as possible. Between the typically child-like TV parents, the typically clueless TV crush, the typical uptight, perfect TV rival, and the typical TV brain-dead wacky cool guy who is always the source of the trouble - it is hard to choose the most offensive.
What's a TV show without an unrequited love story, so Nate has a crush on childhood crush on Amber, who, like in all these show is engaged to wealthy gentleman Steve Moss (Dan Wells). This is the only driving storyline throughout the series and you've seen it a thousand times before. As a whole, "Free Ride" has little to offer that you haven't seen in any other witless sitcom. Although thanks to the failed attempt at improv pulling the show down onto its face without a safety net, it is actually a more of a mess than any other witless sitcom. You can do better. In fact, you can do a LOT better and that show is called "Significant Others".
* / 4