thePeanutBloggery

Please welcome Morgan Matson, a brand new peanut to the bloggery.
- kittson

I’ll admit it: I was mad when I heard that my beloved 30 Rock was being pulled off NBC’s schedule for three weeks to make room for a new Andy Richter show. 30 Rock, despite its last two faltering episodes, was my happiest TV discovery of this year. Coupled with The Office, I believed NBC’s Thursday night comedy lineup couldn’t get any better.

It just got better.

Andy Barker, P.I. is a highly enjoyable sitcom. It’s subtle in a way that demonstrates just how sophisticated TV comedy is getting. Richter’s Andy Barker is a successful CPA, married with a baby (who we have yet to see and who I hope they use sparingly), who strikes out on his own. Unbeknownst to him, his new strip-mall office is the former office of Lew Staziak (Harve Presnell), Private Investigator. While Andy struggles to attract clients, he stumbles into P.I. work, and in the twist that makes this comedy work, he uses his CPA skills to solve his cases. His fellow strip mall workers, Simon the video store clerk (Tony Hale) and Wally the Afghani restaurant owner (Marshall Manesh), round out the ensemble in a way that feels natural – as opposed to a wacky neighbor always dropping by. Some of the funniest ingredients are the barely glimpsed details that are often missed on the first viewing. (For example, Wally decorates his office with aggressively pro-American signs– MSG No! USA Yes! – and watches his employee Hakim on a video monitor marked “Hakim.”)

This comedy is still finding its feet, but the two episodes that have aired are incredibly promising. It remains to be seen whether the fish-out-of-water P.I. bit will remain fresh and whether Andy’s CPA skills will continue to figure. But Richter plays Barker with a degree of sweetness that is missing from many comedies - certainly from 30 Rock, making Andy Barker P.I. well worth looking into.

View the episodes you missed on the NBC website.