How did ‘Super Fun Night’ finish its first season?

You know the drill: there’s nothing else on TV tonight, so left scrambling to find something to talk about…we return to Super Fun Night and that lingering question, “is it any better than I remember?” The short answer is “no, sorry!” Actually, the long answer also starts “no, sorry,” but gives us another 400 words to explain why. It’s perhaps not fair for me to offer a real critical assessment of a show for which I’ve only seen three intermittent episodes, but then life isn’t fair, is it? We’ve got to work with whatever limited, sometimes ignorant information at our disposal.

So what’s new? Since early January, Kimmie has landed a boyfriend, James (ACTOR NAME, from Hello Ladies), and kissed — or been kissed by — Richard, apparently last week. Big things happening! Richard was obviously set up as the love interest from the get-go, but the show seems to have cottoned to the fact that he and Kimmie aren’t the best match. James on the other hand is sweet, cries at cat commercials — sort of Kimmie’s perfect guy. So it’s nice when, rather than declaring her love for a leaving-for-Berlin Richard, Kimmie runs to James and apologizes for the kiss she shared with Richard. Call it a successful rom-com inversion!

This season finale essentially dispensed with the whole notion of a “super fun night,” which is probably okay given that was never much to hang a whole series on. But it does beg the question: what is this series actually about? It’s unclear as the season ends whether Richard will be back, and therefore to what extent we’ll see what goes on at Kimmie’s law firm. And if we’re not at the law firm…we’ve really got a limited number of places to go. Marika’s work? Helen Alice’s room? Super Fun Night has a cast and pedigree worthy of a finer, funnier show, so here’s hoping for a summer retooling and a second season that dispenses with dead comedic weight and figures out what, exactly, it wants to be.

…Although the very end, a cast-wide rendition of Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls”, was pretty great. Glee’s known for years: you can never go wrong with a Queen musical number.

Image: ABC