SEAN SAVES THE WORLD

* (out of ****)

 

Because 17 fans of the Hallmark Channel demanded it, Sean Hayes is back on television in Sean Saves the World. NBC is banking on the fact that the world fell in love with a supporting actor on Will and Grace, and not the terrifyingly flamboyant, scene-stealing man-child, who made Charles Nelson Reilly look like Ron Swanson. Sean plays Sean, a gay man who has adopted the high-school-aged daughter he helped create when he was trying not to be gay (end of premise). Will and Grace’s Jack had the energy of a man who was lit on fire and LOVED IT. Sean has all of the energy of Sean Hayes, an actor who needs a character to work with. This doesn’t make Sean Hayes a bad actor – it just makes him an actor. Daniel Day Lewis is awesome, but if he was the star of a sitcom named Daniel Saves the Day…Lewis, it would be terrible. He doesn’t have a stage-honed persona to go on. He has made a career out of playing other characters – characters who had lines written by a writer and actions directed by a director. You can cast Robin Williams in The Crazy Ones, and just let him go. It won’t be good, but you don’t have to build a character. He comes with one. Sean Hayes doesn’t come with anything, except for the experience of being on a hit sitcom.

Before the Fall TV Extravaganza started, I would have picked The Michael J Fox Show to coast on its star’s name brand, and not much else, and Sean Saves the World to work hard to reintroduce its star to the world. The exact opposite happened. Fox makes use of everything it can, utilizing its star, but also developing a character and a world around him. World doesn’t do shit, treating the fact that they landed Hayes as if they landed Will Smith: not only is he the biggest name in the biz, but his charisma will carry us all the way to the top! This tactic shouldn’t be used with any star (except maybe Kristin Wiig – she can do anything), but I can think of about a billion people I would have cast before Sean Hayes. I wouldn’t have even thought he was a Big Get if he was cast as a supporting character on Moms, much less starring in his own show. By the way, French Stewart does have a supporting role on Moms. Is it weird that I put these two on roughly the same celebrity level? I wouldn’t care if French Stewart got his own show, either.

Everything surrounding Sean in Sean doesn’t help much, which is also baffling. Linda Lavin plays his mom (awesome!), who is Sitcom Mom Trope 3, which is the one that is loud and a little slutty (bummer). His boss is played by Thomas Lennon (holy shit!), who plays a man who is very rich, a little weird, and rarely funny (good job, NBC). It doesn’t piss me off that it all falls so flat – I’m used to that – but they seem to not care, because they have Sean Hayes. One of the worst new shows of the fall.

– Ryan Haley