Mr. Sunshine

As a man struggling to find where he misplaced his heart, Perry makes angst seem easy. His sense of timing isn't rusty. The sitcom has a few clouds: Alonzo needs an edge and the show should make Jorge Garcia's ("Lost") facilities manager a permanent regular. But Mr. Sunshine could be midseason's brightest ray of mirth.

What more could you ask? Sharper scripts, for a start, and a better sense that Perry's unhappy central character is strong enough to hold the center of the show. But there's enough promise here, and enough room to grow, that you can't help hoping Sunshine will follow the midterm-correction path set by the show it's replacing, Cougar Town.

It's a busy opening, including brief but satisfying guest appearances by Jorge "Hurley" Garcia and an elephant. The show is well played down to the smallest parts.

Watching Crystal fire off demands to Ben while working out on a treadmill wearing high heels and a business suit is wondrously, bizarrely funny. If Mr. Sunshine can relocate moments like that from the show's periphery to its center, it may stick around for a while.

Mr. Sunshine looks promising, with former Friend Matthew Perry playing straight man in a swirl of kooks, including an especially amusing Allison Janney, who deliver consistent laughs.

Mr. Sunshine isn't nearly as polished or original as "Modern Family," which precedes it on Wednesday night, but it has the talent and the potential to improve.

Unfortunately, things just never really gel in a pilot episode that falls flat and is only intermittently funny....In fact, only Janney, whose gleefully oblivious character spews un-PC zingers and keeps a huge self-portrait in her office, makes a truly fresh impression.

[Perry] needs to put on a smilier face without losing his sharp edge: sunshine with the ability to inflict a burn.

For now, Sunshine is a bit busy and unfocused. [28 Feb 2011, p.43]

Part of the hedging about Mr. Sunshine stems from her role. In the pilot, it's a wildly over-the-top portrayal that's simultaneously fun to witness but worrisome as to whether Janney can pull it off every week.

Much like "Cougar Town" was back in the fall of '09, Mr. Sunshine is a show with a lot of likable performers, a solid creative pedigree, occasional laughs and a whole lot of room for improvement.

The premiere of Mr. Sunshine feels more forced at times than it needs to be, as if the writers mistrusted Perry and company's ability to wring humor from real-life situations and felt compelled instead to send in the clowns--with axes--to get the job done.

While the varied events coming to the center each week do create comedic possibilities, Sunshine will wax or wane less on what passes through that revolving door than on the underwhelming occupants of its regular offices.

Decidedly dreary for openers, Mr. Sunshine succeeds in making Cougar Town look like a lion of the prime-time jungle. That's obviously not the intent. But Perry, Janney and company will have to brighten matters in a hurry to avoid a very quick sunset.

Mr. Sunshine never really comes into focus. I'm regarding this as a work in progress, and am hoping it finds its way in weeks to come the way Cougar Town quickly did.

Mr. Sunshine isn't particularly hilarious or endearing, and the comedy doesn't surround Perry with a balanced ensemble of characters who get to be funny as well.

Even when the pacing and writing and performances seem to line up, some intangible quality fails to quite hit the spot.

It's not a complete disaster, thanks to supporting actress Allison Janney and a smooth single-camera tone. But it's a quintessential "so what?" sitcom that practically begs you to damn it with extremely faint praise, mincing your words down to the blandest of neutrality.

It just doesn't feel like it's setting up a story we're really going to care about.

I suppose Sunshine can get by for a time on Perry's familiarity to audiences and because it has the great "Modern Family" as a lead-in. But in the long run, those factors aren't enough to counterbalance how much of a downer the show is.

Leaden, dull, flat, tone deaf. Any reason to go on? Sure. This replaces another ex-"Friends" vehicle (Courteney Cox's "Cougar Town," which returns mid-April) that launched with both left feet, then dramatically improved. With all the on-screen talent here, this ex-"Friends" star could eventually shine, too.