![]() ![]() We try to hire people with actual genre experience. It can't look like a comedy-goof version of the genres. The aliens actually need to be from space. Everything is played straight, which means the monsters can't be goofy, they actually have to be monsters. It's vital for the comedy to work and for the emotional stakes to work. We're really going for a hyper-realist style. You worked on "Saturday Night Live." How does that help adapt your own writing for television? Are there other experiences in your past that helped pave the way for how you would adapt this? I'm hoping with the show we can dramatize that disconnect - how dating can feel so high stakes and visceral for the hero, and so boring and inconsequential for all of the friends and family that surround him. ![]() But when you tell your friends about what you're experiencing, they tend to trivialize it and downplay its significance because - from their perspective - it's not that high stakes. The fate of the world rests on every moment. When you're in your 20s and you're dating, it can feel like every single text and every date and every call is life or death. But also, just on an emotional character level, it's vital that our hero is in every situation alone. You always want to play the wacky premises as straight ahead as possible. That goes back to "Monty Python," at least. When you're doing high stakes, premise-driven, absurdist comedy, you don't want people mugging and calling out the joke - that would murder it. When you're trying to adapt this for the FXX network, was it really important that you not dilute it by having characters comment on the preposterousness of the situation?Ī hundred percent. So I started writing these stories that were kind of dating, but not so much the way dating actually happens - more about how it can sometimes feel. His friends - none of them take his side - all think that this Hitler guy is pretty cool and he should just give him a chance. The very first story I wrote for the collection is about a guy who finds out his ex-girlfriend is dating this older rich guy and he's really upset, especially when he finds out that the guy is Adolf Hitler, who is 126 years old and has faked his own death. But even though they were completely strange and surreal and featured time travel and trolls and aliens, they were actually - ironically - the most personal stories I'd ever written. Fewer stereotypes and a continued dose of absurdity could help Man Seeking Woman strike the perfect comedic balance.It really just started with me in my living room writing these short stories about dating in my 20s - and they were very unusual stories. The whole "What's the deal with women?" theme has already been played out many times on television the show is slightly less fresh for dragging it out, even though the ultraweird execution certainly gives it an edge. The main flaw of this funny show is that it sets up Josh as "Our Hero" and the women he encounters as simply "Types." Yes, it's hilarious when his "Crazy Ex" Maggie tells Josh that her "relationship with Dolphy" (literally an 126-year-old Hitler) isn't any of his business, but when we're treated to so much of Josh's backstory and inner life, it doesn't sit quite right to have female characters be such tropes - in one case, literally a mute, hairy, gray troll from the forests of Norway. If only Josh's female counterparts were given as much attention. ![]() His comic skill and warmth give the audience a solid anchor to hold onto throughout the deep weirdness. ![]() He's relatable and believable even when he's having an exorcism performed on his apartment to get rid of his ex-girlfriend's psychic influence or sending a woman a text so clumsy he's routed to the Center for Important Emergencies. Jay Baruchel, who's always been the kind of adorable underdog people want to root for on-screen, is the perfect actor to maroon in the bizarro plot twists Man Seeking Woman throws at the audience. ![]()
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