Television Review

“The League” doesn’t make it to the End Zone

Are you already planning your top picks for the fall fantasy football league season? If so, then you are just as intense as the guys on FX’s new comedy, “The League.”
Created, written, directed, and produced by Jeffrey Scahffer, most well known for contributing to the success of several shows from “Seinfeld” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “The League,” is a comedy about 5 best friends who are all infatuated with their online fantasy football league. While the premise of the show is sure to entice any man who enjoys a little healthy competition, the jokes go too far and the characters are not believable, never mind lacking comedic presence. Men will quickly find something better to watch and women won’t even consider, “The League,” on their options of television that evening.
“Have you seen my lucky draft shirt?” Well his wife surely hasn’t. That’s because she gave it to the dry cleaning lady in hopes that her husband, Pete (Mark Duplass), the organizer and reigning champ of the league, would forget about it. Well, he doesn’t. In fact, when the dry cleaning lady comes to the house wearing the, “I shaved my balls for this?” t-shirt, Pete pays her two hundred dollars for it back. Nothing about this scene is plausible. No one in their right mind would pay two hundred dollars for a filthy, outlandish t-shirt. The slogan on the shirt isn’t even comical, nor does it make sense in that the t-shirt relates to football in any way. And that’s just one instance where the writers try too hard to be funny.
Another member of the league, Taco (Jon Lajoie), a stoner adult with the maturity level of a seven year old, sings a dirty song at a kid’s birthday party. The song goes on way longer than any mother would allow and the joke is ruined. The song is not laughable and sure to offend some; rather than understanding the humor of the song we are left feeling how unrealistic and overdone the scene is.
Clearly, the show isn’t meant to be realistic, but the blatant over-the-top scenarios and actions of the characters take away from the shows ability to intertwine comedy with the intensity of the fantasy league. In one instance Kevin (Stephen Rannazzisi) a district attorney and Ruxin (Nick Kroll) a defense attorney make a deal about a suspect’s sentence based on draft picks. The suspect, facing ten years in prison, asks what has happened and finds out, “You’re going away for five years and I just lost Adrian Peterson.” Forget being believable, this scenario is just plain stupid.
The worst part about this is that they try to portray these men as if they were real. They attempt to stereotype men in such a way as to make the character’s seem believable; as if the characters would be your next door neighbors. The producers in no way achieved this goal. Rather, the character’s come off as trying to hard so they end up being less relatable to the audience only distancing themselves from the lifelike scenario that was supposed to be created with over-the-top jokes and one liner’s.
Middle-aged men aren’t that entertaining to begin with. Throw in their unhealthy obsession with a fantasy league, mix it up with bad jokes and unrealistic scenarios and you have a half assed comedy that will most likely be cancelled after the first season. The show doesn’t even pretend to appeal to women; it is a man’s show surrounding a man’s subject. But its attempt to capture men’s attention falls flat. Most of the jokes go to far and some don’t even make much sense. I think this season, most of the guys would rather focus on their own fantasy league rather than watch other guys attempt to make light of their own.