If I see one more new show about a guy who works in a big-box retail store, I’m going to scream. Cavemen, which debuted on ABC last night, has a protagonist who works in an Ikea-like furniture showroom called Nörskbild, which I suppose is a step up from the Best Buy-like Buy More where Chuck works on Chuck (next door to the Wal-Mart-like Large Mart), or the Home Depot-like Work Bench where Sam works on Reaper, or even the Kinko’s-like Copy Kingdom where Claire’s dad started working this season on Heroes. We get it: big-box stores are as soul-crushing as they are all-American. Let’s move on.
Here’s my one-grunt review of the Cavemen premiere: Ehh. (Look for an official, more sophisticated review from our critic in a forthcoming issue of EW.) There’s been a lot of talk about Cavemen as a racial allegory, but there’s really not much to chew on there. Joel (Bill English) is an assimilationist (the pilot’s plot hinged on his reluctance to tell his roomies that he’s dating a homo sapien), while Nick (Nick Kroll, pictured, right) is a proud separatist (fittingly, he’s also a grad student, with academia-bred politics). But the show seems to favor Joel’s position by default, since he’s a nice, smart guy, while Nick is pretty unlikable: he’s lazy, he’s a mooch, he’s pretentious, and he’s constantly undermining and taking advantage of his supposed friends, particularly Joel’s naive younger brother, Andy (Sam Huntington, left). On the other hand, as the designated sarcastic one (the David Spade character, if you will), Nick does get all the best lines. (Even so, the Nick character was funnier yesterday for a few minutes on The View, poking fun at creationist/flat-earther Sherri Shepherd, than during the whole Cavemen pilot.)
Still, for all the hand-wringing about fitting in, the cavedudes didn’t face much in the way of prejudice during the pilot — the closest thing was a handful of patronizing comments by a neighbor, cynical Realtor Leslie (Six Feet Under’s Julie White, scene-stealingly funny). Excessive body hair aside, the cavemen aren’t that different from any other group of late-twentysomething guys. That may be the point, but it prompts the question: why, then, should we be interested in them or care about what happens to them?
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I thought the Large Mart on Chuck was clearly Costco, with aisle setups and everything else. This was the most interesting thing about this atcile.
I watched last night and really WANTED this show to be funny, but alas, I felt nothing – Meh. Sorry ABC. I tried.
wow someone wathed it. I always figured ABC would jump out and say “PUNKED” before it actaully aired. My bad.
I kept flipping to it while watching Beauty & the Geek only to see commercials. Given that B&tG had umpteen commercials in the first half hour, Cavemen must have been about 12 minutes long in total! Wow, cutting out all the racial humor, must have been a great show!
Boring article…maybe because I disagree. I thought the show was surprisingly funny, and that Nick being the lazy mooch was hilarious. I’m giving it another watch for sure.
Since I expected most people to say that the show was dreadful, ehh is actually a pretty good review.
I thought I’d give the show a try. Five minutes in and I was picking lint off my sweater.
If they were going to spin off a Geico commercial, the gekko would’ve been much more entertaining, I’m sure.
I saw it for a few mins. then changed the channel. The show is dreadful. Carpoolers is not that bad, but it is not the writing that is at fault, it’s the acting which smells like twenty day old Jarlsberg. The best part was the guys were trying to find parking. Pretty much every single person has gone through a similar experience when it came to parking in a public lot.
Carpoolers was much more painful, but every show isn’t going to be good. Curious to see what else they might have up their sleeves – besides the excessive body hair. Actually, I’d like to see the frequently-mentioned Cave girls.
The producers are playing it too safe. It looks like they’ve “caved” sorry for the pun, and have dialed back some of the potential humor the premise presents. I felt like I was watching one of those mid-season replacement shows NBC would throw on after Friends that failed miserably. Minus the body-hair of course.
The store on Cavemen is clearly an Ikea.. un pronouncable Swedish furniture names and all.
I read the reviews and watched the show anyway and surprising it wasn’t half bad. I agree that it’s lame to create a show based on a moderately funny string of commercials, but this show actually has potential as it can talk about real, 21st century racism using these safe, cartoony cavemen.
I gave it 10 minutes, then had to turn away (to B and the G). Maybe it improved, but I wasn’t going to stick around to find out. While I haven’t seen a lot of the new shows, this has to be close to tops on the axe-list.
ABC will probably break records with Cavemen…as in the record for the largest drop in viewship…after being so highly touted, Cavemen is going to cost many reviewers their credibility. Its as if the writers sat around thinking, hey, let’s take the GEICO commercials, remove all of the humor, hire bad actors and have them run on too long like a bad SNL skit. This doesn’t even go into the poor use of reworded racist jokes from 10 years ago. There was nothing even remotely orignial or humorous in this show. Death causes the loss of fewer brain cells than watching that drivel.
I’m glad Gary rose above the hype to see that in the long run “Cavemen” was no better or worse than any other middling show on TV (“Rules of Engagement,” anyone, anyone?) After an almost comical amount of negative press, I knew the show couldn’t be THAT bad, and it wasn’t. Julie White was hilarious (“Him: I’m Joel. Her: Really!?”), the original caveman and Nick Swardson’s cameos were welcome and the story was bland but bright. The production values were great as well, what, that counts.
p.s. if you want to talk about bad shows, talk about “Carpoolers.” The deadbeat son was funny but that was it.
My one word grunt: Disappointing! I really like the Geico CM line and I thought I’d give the show a shot. I laughed more at some of the Last Comic Standing tryout rejects than I did the whole 30 minutes of Cavemen. Can’t believe the reviewer dismisses the Racial Allegory, it was so obvious they even trotted out a Caveman equivalent “Once you go Caveman you never go back” or something equally stupid. They would have done well to cast Joel’s Homo Sapien Love interest as a black woman, rather than “The Hot Blonde”, it would have put some of the racial allegory to rest. Didn’t see the Cavemen struggling much for acceptance or fighting pre-conceived ideas either. In the end, the show is somehow supposed to be a comedy and on that score I give it a D-. It just wasn’t funny. I’ll give it 10 minutes next week and it better pick up. Only funny guy was the original Caveman and he had what? 2-3 Lines? Finally it was John McEnroe arguing balls on the line, NOT Bobby Knight! Get the jokes straight!
Uh, the Cavemen idea would hardly be the first time a marketing concept was turned into a show and, maybe it’s just me, but this seemed far more inspired than “Baby Bob.” Am I the only one who liked it…and wished there was actually more racial allegory? I thought that was what had made the show’s original pilot such biting commentary. It wasn’t great, but it had a number of really funny moments. It felt refreshingly low-key and low-concept, despite the fact that it’s about, you know, modern day cavemen. Could have used a little more conflict and tension, though.
is it weird that I could tell one of the cavemen was from Best Week Ever underneath the makeup? He has very distinct delivery or voice I guess. I think it is Nick…did anyone else recognize him? He might have been better off staying with BWE.
I watched this show with no expectations. In fact, I was just too lazy to change the channel. I have to admit, I laughed once or twice. It was the scariest moment of my night. Since I really just half watched the first episode maybe I’ll watch it and give it my full attention. Not sure though.
Maybe ABC can put something decent in its spot. Like Pushing Daisies. I’m dying to watch it but it conflicts with my Gossip Girl. Dilemma!
Excessive body hair? Clearly you haven’t seen the inside of a mens locker room at a gym recntly. Apparently “manscapping” is as much a thing of the past as a Neanderthal.
I actually semi-enjoyed the show. I was expecting it to be horrible and it wasn’t bad. You have to take it for what it is. I even thought about turning to beauty and the geek, but I just can’t watch that show anymore. I used to love it. But the guy beauty is an actor. That’s not a guess. He is. And although it doesn’t take THAT much away from the concept of the show (as some of it was no doubt ‘acted’ before), it just kills it for me. I’ll tune in occasionally, but at this point…i’d rather watch Cavemen.
The store they are making fun of is Ikea, not a Best Buy type store. I didn’t think it was that bad.
I know that when a Caveman-related GEICO commercial comes on, I can’t get to the mute or channel-changing buttons fast enough – why would I suffer through an entire 19 minutes of it (accounting for commercial interruptions…Oh my GOD…a Caveman GEICO commercial DURING “Cavemen”?!? Horrific!)
No, I’m sorry, I will not even give this show a chance, and predict it will be canceled before mid-season….but then again, there are millions of people out there that voted for Bush….
i like the cavemen show!!!!!!
I’m going to have to disagree on this one. I thought Cavemen was surprisingly hilarious! You got to admit some of the banter back and forth was funny, especially when Nick said Joel’s girlfriend had a fetish for cavemen. While I don’t foresee this show lasting long, if it can keep me laughing I’m game.
I thought Cavemen was surprisingly not bad, after all the flack it got from critics. It’s not supposed to be ridiculously heavy on the issues, and the quips are funnier than most sitcoms.
According to the writers there is supposed to be no link between the cavemen and any racial group. Seemed a pretty obvious allegory to me. Ignoring that I have to agree with the posts that the show just wasn’t that funny and that there was next to nothing to indicate the Cavies weren’t accepted by society at large. In fact it seemed they went out of their way to present the Cavemen as smart and competent (Joel at the Ikea where he co-worker was useless), Nick the Master’s student and the other cavemen “getting the chicks”. I certainly didn’t feel a relation to their plight. Found Nick to be rather annoying actually. Better pick up on the funny quickly or this show is gone quicker than you can say “Queens Supreme” or “Smith”! BTW: I like the Geico commercials, didn’t see much of the clever acting and facial expressions that made many of that series of commercials funny. Yabba Dabba Doo! FF
Considering this is only the 28th post and my 2nd, doesn’t seem the show got much viewership. Oh well not like it’s a serial where you watch 10 eps, get hooked and then it gets pulled leaving you hanging. No investment needed here, sure hope ep.2 is funnier or Fred Flinstone’s comparisons will be pretty frickin’ accurate!