Ben and Kate review: ‘Bad Cop/Bad Cop’

It’s a shame, really, that Ben and Kate isn’t connecting. It has two of the most likeable leads I’ve yet seen in a new show this season, its setpieces genuinely make me chuckle and it knows absolutely what it wants to be. It’s a misfit family sitcom, with added surrealism.

Surrealism that was even more apparent with the post-pilot arrival of Neil Goldman and Garrett Donovan whose previous credits include Family Guy, Scrubs and Community — all shows that get weirder and weirder with every passing episode.

I think Bad Cop/Bad Cop was on the same level as the pilot, but I think that’s necessary. It expands the world, and fleshes out characters and ticks and I’m fully confident, that if the show continued – which it likely won’t – it would be up there with Happy Endings or Parks And Rec with jokes-per-minute and character empathy.

In the episode, it’s quickly set up that Ben has been taking Maddie to school late every day last week, and now Kate has a meeting with the school principal — Alan (I did say this was basically an Amy Sherman-Palladino show!)  Ruck — to make sure everything is okay. Ben hits it off with the Principle, which gets Ben and Kate invited together to a school shindig, which in turn ends up bringing all the school members back to their place to an after party. Only, Kate has been lying about where they have been living to get Maddie into school. They have been using Tommy’s parents house, and they quickly rampage in with little problem, and fix the house up for a party. Needless to say, they don’t find out that she’s been lying, and Maddie is still accepted into the school after some more late-night schmoozing from Ben and all is well and good in the Fox household.

One of the most intriguing parts of the show so far are the flashbacks; they are almost forming a myth arc of sorts, and definitely give the show something to stand out from the crowd with. Here, they were only used in the (pretty fabulous) opening credits and the very end. But it’s neat, and personal, which makes sense considering creator Dana Fox has modelled the show a lot on her life.

I’m going to be sticking around for as long as Ben and Kate are, but I’m clueless if that’s going to be until week four, or week twenty-four. We’ll see. I’m keeping my fingers crossed, because, I think, people will begin to see that this is one special little comedy.