Tv Review: Perfect Harmony (2019). NBC's new musical sitcom kicks off on a promising note.

Image courtesy of NBC

Tv Review: Perfect Harmony (2019) by Ben Jeffries (4/10/2019)

Season 1 Episode 1 - Pilot (26/9/2019)

22 minutes

Comedy, Drama, Musical

Thursdays on NBC, then streaming on Hulu

NBC’s new musical comedy Perfect Harmony romps along at a prodigious tempo, but still finds time for a few notes of comedy and feeling.

Arthur Cochran (Bradley Whitford) is an Ivy League music Professor who moved to a small country town in Kentucky with his sick wife so that she could spend her last days in the place where she grew up. Now that she’s gone Arthur has no idea what to do with himself, and he can’t really see the point of life anymore. That is, until he meets the choir of the Second First Church of the Cumberlands, who can’t hit a note or carry a tune. When Arthur learns that the choir’s rivals in an upcoming competition are the local mega church who refused to bury his wife in their cemetery, he agrees to help the underdogs out of sheer spite. The tune which Perfect Harmony hums might sound familiar, but the performances are all well pitched and the comedic elements give the shows potentially grim subject matter a bright tone.

The pilot episode for this musical comedy, created by Lesley Wake Webster (Co-Executive Producer on Speechless and Life in Pieces) squeezes a feature film sized plot into a half hour tv episode space by moving at blistering speed. In four short acts the episode hits all of the crucial beats of a comedy feature plot: the meet cute between the music professor and the out of tune choir, his refusal of the call to action in helping them, his eventual acceptance of the call to action motivated by personal reasons, getting to know each other through the power of music, revealing the source of his inner turmoil, him overstepping the bounds of a fledgling relationship in his spiteful drive to win, the choir responding by throwing him out, the emotional reconciliation, the triumphant display at the singing competition followed, finally, by the grumpy professor earning his place among new friends. It’s a lot of ground to cover in 22 short minutes and the episode feels a little overstuffed at times, but while everything happens at a breakneck pace on screen the show still finds time to be funny and sweet, owing largely to the performances of the cast and a hyper functional script.

Bradley Whitford and Anna Camp appear to be
having a lot of fun playing against each other.
Image: NBC

Bradley Whitford is a streak of bitter magic as Arthur Cochran, the cynical, depressed, widower who doesn’t know what to do with himself after his wifes death. With his wife gone, Arthur is aimless and sour, and our first introduction to him is sitting in his car by the graveyard where his wife is buried, drunk and contemplating suicide. Just as he’s about to chase a bottle of bourbon with a bottle of pills Arthur is distracted by the tuneless, off tempo, version of Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus coming from the nearby church. His music Professor ears are so offended by the performance that he puts aside the pills and storms inside to insult the choir before passing out on the floor. Throughout the episode Whitford is sarcastic and sharp, but never mean, and there’s a wit and intelligence to his performance that makes Arthur enjoyable to watch, rather than pitiable as he drinks and mopes. As a foil for Arthur’s bitterness Perfect Harmony gives us Anna Camp as Ginny, who is pure sunlight and cheer as the charming, optimistic, southern belle with a mischievous son and a well meaning but misguided ex-husband. These two performances alone are enough for an audience to hold onto throughout the rapid fire plot points of the episode, but the rest of the choir are also funny, quirky, characters.

The Reverend Jax, played by Rizwan Manji, was raised by a missionary family on a diet of Bowdlerized movies altered to teach vaguely problematic morals, like Unmarried Women Cause Problems (Mary Poppins) or the Tom Hanks classic Don’t Get AIDs, which he likes to use as examples when making a point. Geno Segers plays Dwayne, the stereotypical quiet giant who’s shyness evaporates as Arthur unlocks the amazing potential of his mighty voice, resulting in a stirring a cappella version of Miley Cyrus’ Wrecking Ball. Dwayne’s best friend is Ginny’s ex-husband Wayne, played by Will Greenberg. Wayne isn’t the brightest bulb in the light show, but he’s enthusiastic and charming in his own way. Rounding out the choir members we get to meet in the episode is Tymberlee Hill as Adams Adams, a quick talking woman who tells it like it is. While she’s fun in the time she has on-screen, a symptom of the packed screenplay is the way Tymberlee disappears from the middle of the episode only to return at the climactic performance, to say nothing of the other three members of the choir whose names we never learn. On the other hand, everyone is well settled into their characters from the first moment they appear, and given the amount of singing the show requires, there are some strong voices amongst the cast as well.

Arthur Cochran (Whitford) is in rough shape
when he first meets the choir.
Image: NBC

While the cast are all hitting their respective notes with precision, the screenplay is equally precise, keeping proceedings on track with it's steady, high tempo, beat. If you look at it structurally, the plot is virtually a blueprint for a sappy comedy with some absurd jokes wound through the mix, but it’s been honed and sharpened to a fine finish. Every scene is working on two or more levels, plotting out the basic narrative structure of the episode while weaving the story of Arthur tighter and tighter into the stories of the choir members, and also establishing core motivations for the series to follow. At first glance it may seem like an example of screenwriting 101 delivered at a surprising pace, but there’s an engaging rhythm to both the story and the dialogue that speaks to just how judiciously the script has been crafted. Being whittled back to it’s essential elements, the screenplay leaves room in the mad rush of plot points for the show to find it’s own comedic voice, and for performances to feel natural and un-rushed. There’s time for jokes to breathe and performances to be nuanced. While one off gags and jokes are littered throughout the script, it also sets up and pays off two solid running gags, and a pair of dramatic story lines. The episode definitely feels like there are two or three plot points too many crammed into the space, but something about the efficiency with which it moves and the energetic performances of the cast keeps everything on beat and in sync.

The episode climaxes at a musical number as the choir perform in the competition they’ve been preparing for, singing a mash up of a classical piece and a pop song with particular emotional significance for Arthur, complete with studio-quality sound production. It’s a high energy performance that ties a neat bow around the episodes central storyline, while also being a catchy piece of arrangement. If musical numbers of that quality turn out to be a weekly feature then Perfect Harmony has a good chance to carve out a solid audience in the narrow musical sitcom genre. Perfect Harmony isn’t shy about the similarities it shares with the show that codified the genre, either. As the small choir of the Second First Church stand in the wings at the choir competition, awaiting the judges decision, Reverend Jax leans forward to whisper to Arthur “wow, this is a lot like Glee.”

The breakneck pace of the episode risks leaving the audience behind as it trips headlong through story beats and important moments without pausing, but the impressive cast and focused script provide plenty of handholds to keep the viewer engaged. Perfect Harmony might not be a revolutionary comedy, but it delivers it’s familiar tune with flare and finesse, beginning the series on a promising note.

6.5

Perfect Harmony Stars: Bradley Whitford, Anna Camp, Rizwan Manji, Tymberlee Hill, Will Greenberg, Geno Segers, John Carroll Lynch, Spencer Allport

Created by: Lesley Wake Webster

Written by: Lesley Wake Webster

Directed by: Jason Winer

a Production from: Happy Mule Entertainment, Introvert Hangover Productions, Small Dog Picture Company, Universal Television, 20th Century Fox Television

Distributed by: NBC