PILOT REVIEW: Dr. Ken

DR. KEN

Starring: Ken Jeong, Suzy Nakamura, Tisha Campbell Martin, Jonathan Slavin, Albert Tsai, Krista Marie Yu, and Dave Foley

Created by Ken Jeong and Jared Stern
Written by Jared Stern, Ken Jeong, John Fox, & Mike O'Connell, Directed by Scott Ellis

THE SYNOPSIS
In a new family sitcom, Ken Jeong plays Dr. Ken Park, a brash physician who speaks his mind. He is married to a therapist, Allison (Suzy Nakamura), and has two children, Molly and Dave (Krista Marie Yu and Albert Tsai). At work, he is surrounded by sassy receptionist, Damona (Tisha Campbell Martin), friend and fellow doctor, Clark (Jonathan Slavin), and hospital administrator, Pat (Dave Foley).

THE REVIEW
It might be beaten by its timeslot competitor, Truth Be Told, in a couple weeks, but we have a new leader for the worst new show of the 2015-16 season. Shows like this make me so mad because it makes it seem like a multi-camera sitcom can't be anything but sophomoric and lame when there are plenty of examples in TV history of sharply written shows in that format.

Everything about this show is just terrible and it starts with Ken Jeong who provides a master class in overacting in this pilot. I've never really gotten the whole Ken Jeong appeal in shows like Community or movies like The Hangover trilogy, but he is just terrible here. The biggest problem with this show and Jeong specifically is none of it felt real. These didn't feel like real people at all, they were caricatures who were grossly overusing gestures to make their points or land a joke. Unfortunately, no jokes landed and Jeong overplayed absolutely everything. It really seemed like someone was learning to act for the first time. He was like an overeager high school student in his first school play. Even if the writing isn't there, you'd think he'd be able to be a little better than this.

The rest of the cast had promise but were trapped in a poorly written script and dwarfed by Jeong's extreme movements and poor timing. Albert Tsai, who was so funny in the short lived Trophy Wife, is completely misused here and shows none of the wit and comedic timing he had in Trophy. Sitcom veterans Tisha Campbell Martin and Dave Foley seem like they don't even want to be in something this bad. Suzy Nakamura seems like she could actually be a good character if she didn't have to interact with Jeong all the time. It was just so, so bad. They cancelled Cristela for this?!

WILL I WATCH IT AGAIN?
No way.