Mr. Mayor

I thought season one was great. I normally find Ted danson very funny...season 2 was a major dispontment. I stopped watching after about epp 4. They need to get the writers from season one back.

I watched the first episode and was kind of disappointed as I loved 30 Rock and Kimmy Schmidt. But I gave Mr. Mayor another chance and it got better in the next two episodes. The pacing and humor was more Kimmy Schmidt than 30 Rock but it is funny. There is some meta humor I appreciate and the puns are shining through. Give this series a chance. Even The Office needed 6 episodes or so to find its footing. I think this could be the same case.

Decent rapid-fire comedy with a stream of consciousness pathway of laughs. Loose and sometimes free-associating jokes that can indeed be hard to follow. But, that can also lead to strange and unexpected new humor that is rarely seen on most normal comedies. A fan of 30Rock or Arrested Development would enjoy this show.

The framework of Los Angeles mayoral politics serves well to illustrate the absurdities of modern big-city life. Political correctness and confusion provide nice fodder for Tina Fey's excellent brand of (sometimes awkward or cringeworthy) humor. Ted Danson as aged establishment straightman is a nice familiar casting. Good to have a clueless father figure to bounce jokes off of. It will be interesting to see how the youthful characters are humbled by wit and wisdom. The show does seem to have some nice possibilities.... Hopefully it doesn't become a crusade for social justice or teachable moments or anything more than a platform for stupid, but deceptively sharp, jokes.

I must start this review by clarifying that I originally starting watching this series in mid-July, but I wasn't able to finish it until now due to force majeure reasons. Still, I'll give my personal opinion about it. Although "Mr. Mayor" is not a great masterpiece of series, it isn't trash either as some imply, since it's a good satire of what has become 21st century' politics and issues today, especially in the United States. Nonetheless, I have to flag some aspects.

Although the series creators made a good formula that kept me entertained most of the time generally speaking, I felt that its execution was kinda rocky. In the characters' aspect, while they are interesting enough and had a good interaction between them and with the audience, there's still a lot to do regarding their individual development. As for the comedy factor, it was both a hit and miss, because although there were jokes that managed to pull me some chuckles, other were so goofy and cringy that practically failed.

In the end, while "Mr. Mayor" is a quite OK series with a lot of potential to offer, it requires significant improvements in the writing and humor for Season 2 if it wants to continue in the TV's major leagues for more time. The question is: I would tune Season 2 when it is released? The answer is yes.

As always, Ted Danson is great in his role as goofy mayor. Bobby Moynihan is very funny as his assistant. Not very much character depth after the first two episodes but believe there are better episodes to come.