The Former Mr. Ed is back

Love Monkey Home Page

Is anyone else watching this show? I haven't checking the ratings lately, but somehow I have caugh 3 episodes on live TV so far.

It stars Tom Cavanagh, perhaps best know for his starring roll in "Ed", another quirky TV show that seemed to develop a strong cult following, although somehow I never caught it.

In "Love Monkey" Cavanagh plays Tom Farrell, an A and R rep for an independent music label, charged with finding and promoting new talent.

I'm not sure why I like this show, but I do. Farrell's internal monologue drives the show and nearly the whole show is told form his perspective. There are bits where we learn more about his friends out side of his perspective underneath his internal monologue.

It's touching without being too syrup-ey. It covers the tension around growing up (as an adult). It also explores the necessary tension between music as art, music as business, and music as obsession.

Overall, it seems to strike a nice, gentle, and interesting chord while not going overboard on the sappy or sweet.

Well, I had this post ready to go. Then I heard the show might be cancelled after just 4 well done episodes. Posters on several forums claim the show is cancelled. I have not been able to verify that, however.

This is a show that has legs. It's got compelling, likable carries, and it should be allowed to survey. More and more often, however, the networks aren't giving these shows a chance. Jon discussed this a couple weeks back, too.

It's frustrating because so many good shows over the years would never have survived in today's environment. Shows like Star Trek, Seinfeld, Cheers, Cagney and Lacey are just a few that come to mind. If given time good story telling makes for good TV. Instead of more episodes of this refreshing series, we are likely to get reruns of NCIS, which is not a bad show, but it's not the same.