Superstore: Just Leave It on and Watch

Superstore (2015-) is a workplace sitcom set in the vast Wal-Mart like Cloud 9, where responsible, by-the-books Amy (America Ferrara, best known from Ugly Betty) butts heads with the free-spirit Jonah (Ben Feldman, who bears an eerie resemblance to Charles in Charge-era Scott Baio).

We've seen this free-spirit/by the books pairing a thousand times.  Sam and Diane.  Sam and Rebecca.  Scully and Mulder.  But the twist here is: Amy is married.

Her husband Adam (Ryan Gaul) hosts a barbecuing podcast, watches football, fools around with tools, and basically acts like the uber-sterotypic Macho Man, in stark contrast to the sensitive, feminine-coded Jonah.

So this is the real-life aftermath of a teen nerd movie from the 1980s.  Instead of the teen nerd using his sexual prowess to steal The Girl away from her loud-mouth jerk boyfriend, she marries him. 

Of course, Jonah and Amy will hook up eventually anyway, but adding a husband delays the inevitable enough for the first two seasons to be palatable.

The other characters are the eclectic bunch familiar from other workplace comedies:

1. Lauren Ash as Dinah, the gun-toting, karate-chopping assistant manager/security specialist, who skins wildebeests before breakfast and dropped out of the marines because everyone was too wimpy.  She has a crush on Jonah.

2. Colton Dunn (left) as Garrett, the sarcastic, street-smart black guy who knows how to work the system to his advantage.  He's also in a wheelchair.

3. Nicole Bloom as Cheyenne, an airheaded 17-year old high schooler who got pregnant by her boyfriend (Johnny Pemberton), an aspiring rapper with extremely progressive, pro-choice, pro-gay, anti-racist lyrics: "God is a black woman, yo!"  They get married, and name their daughter Harmonica. 


4. Josh Lawson as Tate, a sadistic pharmacist who makes Jonah his personal slave.

5. Jon Barinholtz as Marcus, a doofus who gets everything wrong and often is injured ("My spleen!").

I was concerned about two characters.

6. Nico Santos as Mateo, who starts out as a priggish tattletale and brown-nosing sycophant, self-righteous, condescending, scheming, manipulative, a gay villan in training.  Over the first season, he softens and becomes more likeable, and in the second season he begins dating.  I still don't like him, but at least his character is not entirely homophobic, a source of laughter rather than disdain.

7. Mark McKinney as store manager Glenn.  McKinney was an original member of the Canadian comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall in the 1980s.  He plays Glenn with a squeaky cartoon-character voice, and as so completely clueless that he comes across as mentally challenged.  And he's a born-again Christian who reads the Bible aloud  and asks for Jesus' blessings during staff meetings.

Born-again Christian usually means homophobic, so I was cringing when a gay couple came into the store to plan their wedding.  He asks "Which is the lucky groom?", and upon hearing "Both of us," assumes that it's a double male-female wedding.  Upon being apprised that it's a gay couple, he is surprised but not angry, and overdoes the enthusiasm: "Oh, you're gay?  That's terrific!  I'm totally supportive! I think gay people are great!"  Finding out that Mateo is gay provokes the same reaction.

Ok, not homophobic.  Scarily out of touch, but not homophobic.

Superstore is not the most innovative of shows; it's mostly what we've seen before.  But it's pleasant enough.  It reminds me of the old days of network tv, where they put a C+ show in between two A+ shows, so you could either turn off the tv for a half hour or just leave it on and watch.

I'll just leave it on and watch.