TV Review: Mr. Sunshine - "Pilot": The Return of a Friendly Face - Page 2

Andrea Anders

Neither Ben nor Alice are ready for commitment at first — Ben is in fact portrayed as a ladies man, in the tamest possible fashion (other than a couple of brief dialogue suggestions, his status as a player is represented entirely by one leering glance at an extra). But guess whether that changes by the end of the pilot? (It does.) Ben finds himself ready to raise the stakes in their relationship, but Alice is already planning on moving in with her other love interest, Alonzo (James Lesure, from Las Vegas, and who also played a small role on Perry's previous series, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip). Alonzo is the Charity and Community Outreach Director for Sunshine (as I learned from ABC's website), and his personality matches the name of the arena as much as Ben's does not. He is eternally happy, effervescent, and optimistic, to Ben's immense irritation. He's also Ben's best friend — or not:

Ben: Alonzo? He's my best friend!
Alice: You hate Alonzo.
Ben: I do hate Alonzo.

Interesting sidenote (interesting to me, anyway): Alice does not exchange a single line of dialogue with Alonzo, her soon-to-be live-in boyfriend.

Ben has wacky co-workers. Of course he does! What is this, opposite world? His boss Crystal, played by an excellent Allison Janney (I don't need to remind you how awesome Janney was on The West Wing, do I?), is a pilled-out mixture of confident inappropriateness and delusional negligence, both hilarious. Allison JanneyShe can be slyly coaxing Ben toward resolving his romantic problems one minute (in the middle of a speech featuring a wildly racially-insensitive song of her own composition), the next ruining a charity event by hurling a small child at clowns she thinks are menacing her (and who could blame her — clowns are nightmare fuel). Crystal wants Ben to find a job for her estranged son, Roman (Nate Torrence, also of Studio 60), whose skillset seems to comprise an enthusiasm for boats, Mafia movies, and... that's it. Ben's secretary, Heather (Portia Doubleday), is defined entirely by the fact that she once set a man on fire. And her inexplicable crush on Roman.

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