Review: Animal Practice ‘Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong’ – Nothing Too Derivative

In my review of the pilot, I saw a sliver of potential in Animal Practice‘s premise – although I felt the lack of personality among its characters robbed it of any promise moving forward. So I didn’t expect much from ‘Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong’, and walked away the slightest bit intrigued: Animal Practice isn’t going to break any barriers in terms of storytelling, but it felt like it took a small step in its second episode – although I wonder if it was enough to keep a large audience interested moving forward.

I thought Animal Practice could make a decent Community Lite: George Coleman is an obvious Jeff Winger clone, unable to connect with people on any levels, except in relation to dogs. When Doug’s dog hurts his spleen in a Frisbee accident (“Frisbee… the most dangerous fetch”), he’s too shaken up to perform the surgery himself, and doesn’t trust anyone but George to do it. For George, his cool, separated demeanor assure him he’s detached enough to perform the surgery – but what do you know, he cares about the guy he’s worked for eight years with.

Anyone can see the Winger-isms right below the surface of George’s character (right down to the snazzy attire), and while its a nice touch to see George back out of the surgery and console Doug, the plot feels too personal to the characters to play out in the show’s second episode – way too close to the pilot for us to have any deeper emotional connections with any of the characters, and have any investment in George embracing any of the people around him (think of the closing moments in comparison to Community’s Valentine’s Day episode in season 2).

The other impressive note about ‘Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong’ actually goes to the furry Dr. Rizzo, who isn’t handled as a complete side show through the entire episode. Sure, he fills out the cute requirements of each script with his painting skills (and outfits), but his B-plot with Angela had some fun moments, like Rizzo demanding the return of his artwork, and the general back and forth between her and the monkey. Yes, this isn’t something the show could do every week, but if the show’s going to have a animal cast member, it could be doing a lot worse material with it.

Unfortunately, anything involving Dorothy is still  awkward, and occasionally painful. I don’t know why every show needs to throw in an episode where a female character acts like she’s on meth when trying to fit in with her co-workers. Not only did we learn nothing interesting about her character, but most of her dialogue was ripped right from just about every long-running comedic series around. It was definitely an odd choice not to have Dorothy and George spend any real screen time together (after the pilot sets their interactions up as the important emotional arc of the season), and I think having her be awkward around the rest of the secondary cast (many who we haven’t seen anything of past the off-putting “quirkiness” of minority characters plaguing many infant shows) was a plot line that felt tired the moment it began.

It still remains to be seen whether the show’s going to rest its laurels on the gimmicks of animals and wacky workplaces, but I think the framework for a great little odd comedy is there. Like I said last month, NBC wants to go broad, and I think it’s a programming philosophy that’s going to hurt Animal Practice moving forward, instead becoming a Mad Libs factory of stock sitcom plot lines. ‘Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong’ ultimately falls short in each of its plots, because they are either boring stories, or feature characters who haven’t been built past the most vanilla of foundations yet. But there’s promise, and if the show can inject some creativity into it, there’s a lot more potential in this show than any of us might think. Will it get there? Probably not, but there’s reason to be patient.

Grade: C

I don’t really have many other thoughts on ‘Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong’ – what did you think of the second episode? Feel free to leave your thoughts/comments below!