Stacked, the new sitcom on Fox is an unusual creation in the world of sitcoms. It deftly combines stock humorous situations with product placement for, of all things, books, and Pamela Anderson.
The episodes thus far have been delightful. The bookstore owner, Gavin, is played by Elon Gold after Tom Scott was scrubbed prior to the pilot airing. Elon is a talented comic who once portrayed Howard on the Howard Stern show, and is much at home in his persona of a somewhat disoriented bookstore owner, author of a B-list book, and having to cope with the overblown Skyler, excellently, some might say surprisingly, portrayed by Pamela Anderson, who drops into the bookstore one day and takes up a job as an assistant.
The supporting characters thus far are well-detailed, and filled in by talented actors, such as the kid-friendly Christopher Lloyd as an absent-minded professor, Marissa Winokur("Hairspray") as Katrina, the cynical bookstore barista, and Brian Scolaro as Gavin's brother.
The characterizations are similar in one sense - almost everyone on the show seems to be uncomfortable with their identities, except for Skyler. She discomforts them, in more ways than one. By the fourth episode, there is an uneasy sexual tension among the hitherto tranquil residents of the bookstore, almost as if the ideas engendered in the books around them were permeating, Pratchett-like, into their minds. Gavin has a sex dream about Skyler, who has one too. As it turns out, it is about the mild-mannered Professor Harold. The episode culminates with Stuart, Gavin's brother, waking from a dream within a dream, a vicarious sex dream, as it were, of Skyler and the Professor.
In each of these dreams, the dreamer dreams about the person he or she is not, most emphatically. Gavin, the bookish, urbane gentleman aspires for Skyler, the bodacious, vivacious blonde bombshell, who yearns for intellectual fulfillment and acceptance in the form of the Professor. Stuart, growing up sidelined by his brother, and feeling rejected, can only dream vicariously about what he feels he can never have. Inexplicably, Abraham Lincoln appears in Gavin's dream, intoning the weighty word "Score!"
Article comments
1 - swingingpuss
I was pleasantly surprised when I found myself getting hooked to the show. It was clear that even I had thought that Pamela had nothing to offer apart from her enlargements. Glad to say I proven wrong, looks can be deceiving, the babe is a fine actor for small screen.
Great review Aaman.
2 - Aaman
It looks like the show has been canned, or is on some sort of hiatus. The standard time has repeats of the original episodes
Pity, really.
The website says it will return this fall - hmm - sometimes the initial core audience loses interest in the interim.
3 - Chris Beaumont
Was it on tonight? it was supposed to be the lead in to The Inside, haven't checked my tape yet....
ANyway, things weren't helped by it's swapping time slots and such with Life on a Stick, which I was also getting strangely hooked on, which I believe has been canned for good.