‘I Feel Bad’ Filled with Light Laughs, Unrealized Potential

“Here’s what every woman knows,” new NBC sitcom “I Feel Bad” begins. “We feel bad about something almost every day. Like sometimes, I cheat on my husband in my sleep.”

The line is spoken by the show’s lead, Emet Kamala-Sweetzer (Sarayu Blue), over a tropical island dream sequence. It’s a moderately funny line, if a little predictable. TV audiences have likely seen stressed moms joking about work before. But “moderately funny and a little predictable” usually applies to sitcom pilots more generally. What’s interesting isn’t whether “I Feel Bad” is good — it isn’t — but whether it has potential. And through the combined powers of Blue and a team of executive producers that includes Amy Poehler, “I Feel Bad” has buckets of potential.

The show, which airs next on Oct. 4, is centered around Emet’s adventures as a wife, daughter, mother, and video-game-company artist. “I Feel Bad” is equal parts a workplace and family sitcom. The show tries for overall political relevance in both spheres, but its message is sharper at Emet’s job: She is the only woman in her male-dominated tech workplace. Her main coworkers are three obnoxious-but-mostly-loveable younger men, all of whom need Emet to protect and mother them.

In the first two episodes, not much happens beyond the establishment of these facts. In Episode One, Emet tries to discipline her daughter Lily (Lily Rose Silver) without turning into her own punitive mother (Madhur Jaffrey). In Episode Two, Emet housesits for her wealthy neighbors and gets carried away with the freedom of being alone in a nice house. In both, Emet is the star and central character — the plot rarely turns away from her, and everyone else is developed only when they impact on the lead.

The centrality of the protagonist is easily the best decision that the show producers could have made. Sarayu Blue sparkles as Emet. She’s funny without being raunchy, tough without being abrasive, and endlessly charismatic and relatable. In fact, one of the jokes that didn’t land revolved around Blue’s hypothetical unattractiveness: Like in “30 Rock,” which relentlessly referenced Liz Lemon (Tina Fey)’s “ugliness,” it’s simply not plausible. Despite Emet’s very believable anxieties, she’s still a beautiful person living a sitcom-clean lifestyle.

Accordingly, much of “I Feel Bad”’s unrealized potential lies in its lack of grubbiness. “30 Rock,” “The Office,” “black-ish,” and even “Parks and Recreation” gained a certain edginess throughout their tenures. “I Feel Bad” has elements of all of its predecessors: a workplace setup straight from “30 Rock,” a family dynamic from “black-ish,” and an overall sweetness that is pure Amy Poehler. In the first two episodes, “I Feel Bad” doesn’t live up to any of these antecedents. But in their first few episodes, neither did they. “I Feel Bad” has a glowing cast, a reliably funny concept, and a solid pop culture relevancy — and for now, that’s reason enough to keep watching.

—Staff writer Iris M. Lewis can be reached at at iris.lewis@thecrimson.com.