“They come free with Whitney Houston.” – Steve
The last couple episodes of Running Wilde could hardly be considered good, but they were at least taking baby steps in the right direction. All of the minor goodwill that I was willing to give this show from those baby steps is long gone. “The Party” was simply a painful half hour of television to get through. And apparently it makes sense that Running Wilde took a nosedive this week, because while this was the fifth episode aired, it appears to be the second one produced.
Now, I understand that airing episodes on non-serialized programing out-of-order has become a regrettably common practice. Hell, it even happened in Running Wilde’s predecessor. If you watch Arrested Development carefully, you will notice that Kitty Sanchez gets “introduced” as a character the episode after we first meet her. And while you could argue that airing “The Party” this late is just as minor as dipping into the Kitty too early, I can’t say I agree. The whole thing was very distracting and a big part of the reason I hated this episode so much.
The stupidity begins with the opening shot where a graphic that was clearly tacked on later reads “Emmy’s first day in Neverwood.” And I was kind of thinking for a minute that maybe the opening scene was just going to be a flashback, and the rest of the episode would take place where it rightfully belonged. But no. Of course not. There wasn’t even an acknowledgement of the fact that this is clearly taking place the day after the pilot. Puddle narrates away but leaves out information we actually might care about.
And all of this could have been dismissed if the rest of the episode carried any kind of comedic weight, but it didn’t. Steve attempts to impress Emmy by giving her an extravagant welcome with extravagant gifts, but Emmy lived in the jungle: she doesn’t need any extravagance. So Steve tries to take it down a notch by showing her how down-to-earth he is willing to be for her. This involves limiting his normally extravagant (this episode wasn’t good enough to use a thesaurus, okay?) annual party of unnecessity to a Ruffles and Twizzlers affair. He thinks he might be able to make it work by using “poorness” as an ironic theme, but his highfalutin guests are either unimpressed or just don’t get it. Things get worse when Emmy presents a nearly 300-slide slideshow of her life in the Amazon which causes all of the guests to clear out. She realizes that while she would like to see Steve be less materialistic, she could maybe stand to be more fun herself. And the episode ends with the two of them sticking around to watch the rest of the slideshow.
Look, Running Wilde creative team, I’m not looking for deep pathos in a show as inconsequential as this, but you need to start making me care about these characters more. I’ve been saying for weeks that the main theme (Steve and Emmy’s budding relationship) needs to be front and center. You can have a dislikable main character, but you can’t have his purpose within the show’s environment also be as dislikable. Michael Scott is a bastard, but he is saved by his unending enthusiasm towards the characters around him.
It lessens the blow and even can make those bastard moments endearing. (Also, even in it lowest state, The Office is just a hell of a lot funnier than Running Wilde.) Steve Wilde’s main counterpart is Emmy, but while they have their “odd couple relationship” down pat, there’s zero chemistry to go along with it. I’m supposed to care about seeing these characters get together but I don’t. The only relationship Steve has that works on the show is between him and Puddle and it’s getting to the point where I’d like to see the show focus on that more often. The lack of any kind of connection with Emmy just isn’t cutting it.
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.