TV is the New Reading

'The Wedding Bells'

is just disappointing

So, I watched “The Wedding Bells” last week and I saw what show creator David E. Kelley was trying to do.

I feel that he succeeds. I’m not so convinced it’s necessary.

“The Wedding Bells,” a one-hour comedy, envisions a wedding plannery where high-strung people launch into histrionics in every direction. It draws on the worst stereotypes of out-of-control brides, out-of-hand weddings and a celebration of excess guaranteed to make the rest of the world loathe America all the more.

It’s enough to make one pine for past glories.

See, Kelley restrained himself in “The Practice.” Oh, there were comic elements to his Boston-based legal drama, but his flaky, out-of-hand cast of characters and its odd over-representation of serial killers were basic color commentary against a more or less reasonable backdrop.

By the time James Spader joined the cast, Kelley was clearly getting tired of restraint. Spader’s Alan Shore character burst onto every situation he encountered with the most boisterously unethical arrogance possible. If he wasn’t suppressing or corrupting evidence, he was bribing people, and if he wasn’t doing that he was sleeping with clients, witnesses, prosecutors, judges – and always getting away with it.

This endearing outrageousness proved to be too destructive for “The Practice,” but it fit perfectly at spinoff production “Boston Legal,” in which William Shatner’s Alzheimer’s-afflicted CEO character Denny Crane is as likely to shoot someone as try a case, and without saying everyone is sleeping with everyone, without saying inappropriate behavior is de riguer, it’s kind of amazing that everyone in this office hasn’t been carted off for sexual harassment.

Outrageous

In “The Wedding Bells,” the outrageous Alan Shore-esque character is taken on by the aptly named Johnny Kad, played by Christopher Rich. He shows up to say vaguely inappropriate things all geared toward turning the operation into a wedding planning empire as his bosses, the Bell sisters, played by Teri Polo, Sarah Jones and Kadee Strickland, try to keep their photographer from hitting on the bride and their new partner-type person Amanda Pontell, played by Missi Pyle, oversteps herself in every direction.

For example, Amanda convinces one bride to insist that her family take out a second mortgage on their home to finance a freakishly over-the-top wedding no one had in mind before she turned on the hard sell. And she books a wedding by telling a wealthy fiancee that their private garden is booked through 2014 and they couldn’t possibly accommodate her unless she were to pay $50,000 just to make the inquiry.

This all speaks to how irrational people get about their weddings. And I can understand the appeal of setting a comedy in a situation where a client can choose one wedding planner over another because she’s “prettier,” and the endless hysteria of brides and bridesmaids and over-the-top extravagance and concepts like eternal love and devotion and commitment all against a backdrop of women sniping at each other and a wedding photographer shooting pictures of the bridal party in their lingerie.

Heck, one aspect I truly enjoyed was when Fred Willard appeared as a washed-up hack of a wedding singer who was operating a wedding singer workshop, and a roomful of wedding singers all gamely trying to imitate him.

That moment was beautifully realized. And it had almost nothing to do with the rest of the show.

Ultimately, I’m certain that there’s an audience for this show that gets really excited about it and is thrilled by every outrageous thing that happens on it.

But I’m just as certain that I’m not a member of that audience. To those who are ... enjoy.

Features Editor Terry J. Aman compiles the Best Bets for The Minot Daily News.

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