TV Review: Bob Hearts Abishola (2019). Excellent chemistry between the leads keeps this sit-com from falling completely flat.

Image courtesy of CBS

Tv Review: Bob Hearts Abishola (2019) by Ben Jeffries (25/9/2019)

Season 1 Episode 1 - Pilot (23/9/2019)

22 minutes

Comedy, Multi-camera,

Airing Mondays on CBS, episodes added weekly to CBS All Access.

As a sit-com, Bob Hearts Abishola makes a decent romance.

Bob Hearts Abishola is the newest multi camera sit-com from tv super producer Chuck Lorre. It’s the story of Bob, a lonely, middle aged, white, American businessman who has a heart attack and falls in love with his nurse Abishola, a Nigerian immigrant.

We open on the set of a busy hospital corridor. Bob (Billy Gardell), middle aged, over weight, and mid heart attack, is being wheeled into the hospital on a stretcher. He’s surrounded by his brother Douglas (Matt Jones), his sister Christina (Maribeth Monroe) and his mother Dottie (Christine Ebersole). As Bob clutches at his chest his brother offers encouraging words, but his mother is skeptical. “He’s not having a heart attack!” she says, dismissively. “It’s just gas!” As they round the corner toward the emergency operating theatre Bob asks the orderlies to stop pushing his stretcher for a second. Levering himself up to one side, he noisily passes gas. Everyone is silent for a second as Bob stares intently into the distance, waiting, before suddenly clutching his heart again and yelling “It’s not gas!” The orderlies hurry to push him onward. For some viewers this joke will play just fine, but for others it has the potential to instantly turn the viewing experience of this CBS comedy into one of wary skepticism.

Lorre has a knack for mining the broadest comedy from highly specific settings, finding huge success with the nerdy world of The Big Bang Theory and the macho cheese of Two and a Half Men and Bob Hearts Abishola continues that trend. In the first three minutes of this new sit com there are the one fart joke, a couple of fat jokes, and a pee joke. In fact, most of the “jokes” the show tries for are either artless, lame, or obvious, feeling like something recycled from a twenty year old sit-com like Becker. The supporting cast which make up the families of both Bob and Abishola are stacked with familiar faces with solid resumes, but the performances tend toward loud and stagey. It’s as if the writers and director wanted to make absolutely sure that the audience knew they were watching a network sit-com, and not some prestige single camera cable comedy, as if the cheap sets and laugh track would let them forget.

Just as you’re starting to wonder if this show possesses any of the self awareness to handle the

The meet cute is all the cuter for how un-glamorous it is.
Image: CBS

sensitive material inherent to its premise, Bob and Abishola have their meet cute moment, and the show starts to work. Abishola (Folake Olowofoyeku) is the first blurry image Bob sees as he returns to consciousness following his heart surgery. “You look like an angel,” he tells her. In his weakened post surgery state Bob is sweet and vulnerable, but Gardell is still able to inject an element of charm and humour into the performance. Abishola, the nurse responsible for treating Bob, has a firm, no-nonsense demeanor, but she’s also warm and personable as she helps Bob to the bathroom and back. They share a wonderfully natural chemistry as Bob talks to Abishola about her socks, which he points out are poor quality compared to the ones his company produces. He promises to get her some of his superior product as she helps him back into bed. When Bob is discharged from hospital the following day he looks for Abishola to thank her for her help, but her shift is over and she’s gone home.

The rest of the episode sees Bob trying to deliver the promised hosiery as Abishola wonders how much she should read into Bob’s actions. The show is careful not to overplay their parts, he’s clearly interested in her and she’s unsure about his intentions, but Bob is always respectful and polite, never desperate or creepily eager, and Abishola is wary, but never standoffish or rude. The show rests entirely on the shoulders of the two leads, and their individual performances and shared chemistry are easily the best things about the show.

The comedy around the edges of the romance feels tired and over played, but a willingness to explore serious subject matter signals the potential for more nuanced writing. The show is clearly interested in playing with the racial tensions of both it’s premise, affluent white American meets poor black immigrant, and also modern day America at large. Bob eventually bribes a nurse at the hospital for Abishola’s address so that he can deliver his gift of socks in person. When he shows up at the apartment where Abishola lives with her aunt and uncle, and her young son, Dele, it’s Aunty Olu (Shola Adewusi) and Uncle Tunde (Barry Shabaka Henley), immigrants themselves, who answer the door. They are immediately suspicious of him, quickly closing the door before he can speak to Abishola. “There’s a white man at the door,” says Aunty Olu. “When has that ever been a good thing?” It’s an obvious joke, but the older couple’s instant distrust of Bob is at least funny for it’s honesty.

Later in the episode Abishola receives a call from her sons school to inform her that he’s been in a fight with another boy. Leaving work and rushing to the chool, Abishola sits down in an interview with the principal and the other boys mother, and the situation is tense. Dele, an immigrant boy with an accent, lost his temper and fought back physically after being called racist names. Abishola is upset, while the other boys mother dismisses the comments as simple “trash talk”. The obvious expectation is that the boy calling Dele names would be Caucasian, but he’s actually an African American boy, which only makes Abishola more angry. It’s a tricky scene, with an amusing turn from Kirstin Eggers as Principal Herman, who is obviously uncomfortable in the middle of the argument between the two women of colour.

What the scene makes clear is that Bob Hearts Abishola isn’t just about White vs Black Culture, but America and it’s relationship to immigrants. These are big issues, and the fraught political climate of modern America makes approaching them a delicate balancing act of honesty, perspective, and sensitivty, especially when seen through the medium of a half hour network sit-com. The two questions that arise are: does the team behind Bob Hearts Abishola have the mettle and judgement to balance such issues against the broad humour they intend to lean on? and is there an appetite among the network viewing audience for that kind of issue driven comedy?

A lot of the episodes laugh lines fall short, too broad and obvious to be really funny but, for a certain audience, that predictable nature and middle of the road tone is part and parcel of an enjoyable sit-com. That familiarity of format is a draw to a large number of people, and is one reason why Lorre's previous shows boasted such huge viewing numbers. The supporting performances are, at least so far, equally broad and obvious, but Billy Gardell and Folake Olowofoyokefu are excellent in the lead roles. 

I’m not sure what that means for Bob Hearts Abishola as a show, when the worst parts of a sit-com are the jokes, but there’s plenty of room for the show to grow into it’s voice as it finds the balance of broad humour and social commentary. Even if it never strikes that balance, if the cost of enjoying the charm of these lead performances is sitting through some average jokes, it may prove worth the price of admission.

6/10

Bob Hearts Abishola Stars: Billy Gardell, Folake Olowofoyeku, Christine Ebersole, Matt Jones, Maribeth Monroe, Shola Adewusi, Barry Shabaka Henley, Travis Wolfe Jr.

Created by: Eddie Gorodetsky, Alan J. Higgins, Chuck Lorre, Gina Yashere,

Written by: Eddie Gorodetsky, Alan J. Higgins, Chuck Lorre, Gina Yashere,

Directed by: Beth McCarthy Miller

a Production from: Chuck Lorre Productions, Warner Bros. Productions,

Distributed by: CBS