In the press notes for the new ABC show “Big Day,” premiering tonight at 9, a comparison is made to the Fox thriller, “24.” Both shows focus on a single day that has enormous consequences for the people involved. Of course, “24” typically focuses on an attempted assassination or a terrorist plot to destroy a city. “Big Day” focuses on a wedding.
The contrast does not do “Big Day” any favors.
While the comparison is clearly intended as lighthearted, the people behind this new comedy obviously don’t get it.
We are told, tongue firmly in cheek: "While no one is defusing a nuclear bomb--they’re arguing about when the salad is going to be served--the stakes are just as high.”
Of course, as we are clearly intended to understand, the stakes are not as high. This is all just fun. But then "Big Day" proceeds to act as if they were in fact that high. And that is a fatal, unfixable flaw.
To give salad choices or centerpiece selections the same dramatic weight as a nuclear threat--to pore over its permutations in endless, minute detail--is to miss what makes a show like “24” work.
The very reason that big audiences are willing to sit through every minute of Jack Bauer’s colossally bad days is because every wrong turn, every false lead, could end in the deaths of thousands of people.
By contrast, whether a spoiled brat’s "Big Day" wedding includes Caesar salads or field greens is of little consequence to anyone other than the bride and her mother.
That’s not to suggest that great comedy can’t come from such obsessive minutiae. The charming 1991 remake of “Father of the Bride,” starring Steve Martin, reveled in the awkward comedy of manners that defines so many weddings. It was, and is, hysterically funny.
But that was a movie. And as a movie it had the good sense to spend most of its hour-plus running time hitting the highlights of wedding wackiness. Had the film gone on for hours, it might have worn a tad thin.
Sadly, “Big Day” wears out its welcome in its very first few minutes.
The story focuses on uptight bride Alice (Marla Sokoloff, “The Practice”) and easygoing groom Danny (Josh Cooke) on the day of their wedding. They are clearly in love, as evidenced by her willingness to let him walk down the aisle to the theme from “What’s Happening.”
The rest of the wedding party is introduced in quick succession. There’s harried mother of the bride Jane (Wendie Malick, “Just Shoot Me”), overprotective father of the bride Steve (Kurt Fuller, "Wayne’s World"), and bridesmaid and sister Becca (Miriam Shor), who has just slept with best man Skobo (Stephen Rannazzisi).
Unfortunately, few of these characters are worth spending an hour with, much less a whole season. Sokoloff’s Alice careens wildly between sweet and petulant, which may be appropriate wedding day behavior for a bride but doesn’t make for a very likable central character.
Malick is a talented comedienne and does frazzled haughtiness better than most anyone, but she’s already so over-the-top in episode one that there’s no place left to go. Cooke fairs better as groom-to-be Danny, mostly because his casual attitude is a nice break from the type-As that surround him.
It’s hard to imagine that better casting could have salvaged “Big Day.” The show’s failure ultimately comes not from the actors but from its unworkable premise.
For a show to earn the right to focus on every hour, minute, even second, of a given day, the events of that day have to merit the investment. Kiefer Sutherland stopping nerve gas from killing half of Los Angeles merits that investment.
Marla Sokoloff having three -- yes, three! -- arguments with her mother about a salad choice does not merit much of anything.
