Animal Practice

Animal Practice

Episode 6: The Two George Colemans

By: Carlos Uribe

Animal Practice is a show about a veterinarian who is good with his patients but not their owners. Also: this is the show with the monkey.

Spoilers Ahoy!

It's a good thing that this show only has two episodes left or this would be my final review of the show. Why? I'm simply running out of things to say. Let's take my constant complaint about the side characters: they're undeveloped. Yamamoto and Angela act wacky for the sake of it. They're not real people. We find out that Angela used to be in beauty pageants but it doesn't add any real depth to the character. It's like the writers think that making her spout random facts about herself is going to make her feel more like a human being. At this point, she just feels like a punchline machine. I wouldn't be so bothered by this except for the fact that she didn't make me laugh a single time this episode. She spends the entire episode moping around because she actually has to compete in the animal costume contest. When she realizes that there's other people who actually put effort to win this contest, she manages to win because she tries. She decided that she wanted to earn the win. This might have worked if I had a good handle on who Angela is supposed to be. There's a certain sense that this is supposed to be a character who lacks integrity and values but she's not defined well enough for this to be projected as actual character traits. I wouldn't expect Angela to be developed this episode because she's a part of the c-plot. Oh, and Juanita seems to actually have lines in this episode. It's a bad thing that I have to keep reminding myself that she's actually a character on this show. When even a random nurse is making an actual impression and a member of the main cast isn't then you have a serious problem with your characters.

Yamamoto could have been developed more this week. To be fair, the show is slightly making him more and more human. His tragedy with his separation helps to add a tragic layer to his quirkiness. This is an episode that also continues a trend where he just wants to be recognized. The problem is that many of the jokes don't stem from these traits. They drive him throughout the plot to prove that he's important and not just a sidekick or whatever, but there's many times where he acts wacky for the sake of it. If the episode could ground all of his behavior from the human parts of the character then his wackiness would have a purpose and it would work so much better. It would also make me care more about the character. It's supposed to be a triumphant moment for the character but it's hard to care about him when he's so unrealistic. Bobby Lee does his best with the role but it seriously needs to ensure that no matter what he's doing, Yamamoto appears like an character. There's just so many times when he doesn't. Doug is used this episode to compliment Yamamoto's desire to be valuable. It's true that Doug is also criminally underdeveloped but he feels more like an actual character than Yamamoto or Angela. I can get a sense that he's actually human.

The character who gets the most attention is George. He's being threatened by Dr. Leiter's impressive veterinarian skills. This leads to the two of them trying to make the other look bad. It's all silly and it's inconsistently funny. I'll admit that the part where the two agree to a truce while they're recovering from the tranquilizers was funny. Here's the problem: I've just had enough of George. He's one of the only two well-developed characters (the other is Dorothy) on the show and he's starting to get on my nerves. He's the protagonist so it makes sense that the episodes would center on him. It's just that with the ensemble around him being so undeveloped, it would be nice to put George in the sub-plot. That would allow the characters around him to be developed which is what this show needs to do urgently. What's even worse is that he's paired with recurring character Jill Leiter. In the two or three episodes she's appeared, she's become more developed than anyone who isn't Dorothy or George. There's nothing wrong with having her on the show but only once the critical character issues on the show have been fixed.

I'm afraid that I'm becoming a broken record. The character issues are major and I've been talking a lot about them. That's not the only problem this show has. The episode begins and ends with a fake horror sequence. The fake horror scenes aren't very well done and they were dull. It's not good when you begin an episode and you're already getting bored. It's worse when you and an episode that ties back to that terrible opening because that's the impression you leave: it's terrible. This episode isn't exactly terrible but it's definably a bad one. It's consistently not funny and that's not what you want to hear if you're a comedy.