One Big Happy Review: Ellen DeGeneres' New Sitcom Offers Few Chuckles and Lots of Nudity

One Big Happy is not shy at all about knocking its plot out of the way as quickly as possible. Within seconds the premise is revealed; lesbian Lizzy (Elisha Cuthbert) and her straight best friend Luke (Nick Zano) have decided to follow through on a pact to have baby together should they not be with anyone romantically by the age of 30. The pregnancy test comes up negative at first, although this may not be an entirely bad thing since up til this point Luke and Lizzie have very little friendship chemistry and seem like they're probably completely unprepared to handle a child.

But that's not the premise of the show, and so Lizzie does end up pregnant, only this news comes after Luke has met the new love of his life, a British girl named Prudence (Kelly Brook), in a bar and decided to get married to her so she doesn't get kicked out of the country for being an illegal alien. At least there's a consistency to no one making good choices on this show. Prudence is a free spirit with a casual disregard to clothing and personal space. Her whimsy doesn't always come off as pleasant, but neither does Luke's so they're a pretty solid couple. When Lizzy points out the myriad holes in everyone's plans, Prudence decides to return to London and let them live their lives with this child, but Lizzy quickly feels bad about asking her to leave, follows her to the airport, and demands she stay. And now folks, we have a long-term set up for a sitcom. Only we're really not sure we actually want to watch it.

The way we feel about One Big Happy can pretty much be summed up by the picture above. It looks like we'd enjoy i - after all it's produced by Ellen DeGeneres and is based on showrunner Liz Feldman's actual life - but for some reason we're a bit uncomfortable. So few of the jokes hit, which is only emphasized by the way over-used laugh track that might drive you legitimately insane. Some of them are completely off-base to the point of being nonsensical or just totally unfunny.  

Additionally - with the exception for the most part of Elisha Cuthbert who is desperately trying to be the logical one here - the characters are too immature and unbelievably off-the-wall to be likable. I'm much rather watch a show about Lizzy trying to find love in the city while raising a child with her best friend than watch her deal with these two grating quirksters canoodling together. Unfortunately, the show seems to end on a note that implies One Big Happy might just be about these two women fighting for Luke's attention and affection, and we've seen enough of those shows before. Having a lesbian main character on a sitcom is a really big deal. Having this show revolve around her affection for a man is not. We're not completely losing hope in One Big Happy yet, but we're definitely hoping for much fuzzier feelings next week. And (fingers crossed), a lot less of that laugh track.