Review – Running Wilde

Running Wilde – FOX – 9:30/8:30pm Tuesday – USA

Remember how after Anchorman every time Will Ferrell announced a new movie it leapt to the front of your ‘oh man, I HAVE to see that’ list? But then he just kept playing slight variations of the same ‘man-child who yells a lot’ character that he lost all that good will he’d built up? Then it got to the point where a Will Ferrell movie was probably going to be terrible unless he was surrounded by the right people, like if Adam McKay was behind the director’s chair, and even then there was a chance you’d end up with Step Brothers instead of Talladega Nights. Call it the Will Ferrell/Anchorman Complex, or the Clive Owen/Children Of Men Conundrum, or the Seth Rogen/Knocked Up Syndrome. In this instance we’ll just call it the Will Arnett/Arrested Development Situation.

As GOB on Arrested Development Will Arnett was perfect, but then he started rehashing the same delusional loud mouthed dumbass role in crap like The Brothers Solomon or Blades Of Glory (in which Will Ferrell’s yelly improvisation gets to stand in for the entire script). So when the prospect of Arnett reteaming with Arrested Development creator Mitchell Hurwitz came up surely this would be a good thing. They may have both been involved in the misguided Sit Down, Shut Up, but they were back in the live action field. Not only that but they’d brought along David Cross and Peter Serafinowicz (Spaced, The Peter Serafinowicz Show) for the ride.

Unfortunately Running Wilde almost collapses under its own high expectations. Will Arnett plays Steve Wilde a lonely billionaire who owns Wilde Oil (you could say that he’s Running Wilde!), he misses his childhood sweetheart Emmy (an awkwardly cast Keri Russell) who’s been living in the Amazon jungle with her daughter Puddle (the Amazon jungle? You could say they’ve been Running Wilde!). Puddle hates the jungle and prefers Steve’s mansion, so Emmy agrees to move in with Steve as long as she’s allowed to help him put an end to his selfish ways and help get his life back on track (you could say that she’ll be Running Wilde!). Cross plays Emmy’s eco-terrorist boyfriend, and Serafinowicz plays Steve’s billionaire neighbour he’s always trying to one up.

There’s a lot to like about Running Wilde, Arnett is spot on as a clueless billionaire and Steve has an air of sadness to him that’s usually missing from Arnett’s other GOB Bluth-lite performances. David Cross and Peter Serafinowicz are David Cross and Peter Serafinowicz so I’m not sure why you’re even questioning their performances. Child actor Stefania Owen does a solid job as Puddle, even if at times she’s a little too wide-eyed. The only weak spot in the cast is Russell who’s taking this material far more seriously than everybody else. I understand that wacky comedies tend to need a straight man centre but at times it feels like she’s in a completely different show to Arnett.

Much like its timeslot buddy show Raising Hope, Running Wilde has a convoluted pilot that just packs ridiculous plot point on top of ridiculous plot point (like an Amazonian tribe that takes up residence in an expensive hotel or the miniature horse that gets driven around a lot) and unfortunately not enough of the jokes work. That’s the other thing that Wilde shares with Hope, that awful and condescending word ‘potential’. The pedigree behind Running Wilde is pretty solid so you’d hope that by five episodes into this series a lot of the kinks would be ironed out. Running Wilde is a watchable work in progress that still needs a few tweaks before it becomes a solid comedy, but with these folks involved I’m sure it’ll get there eventually. Fingers crossed anyway, the world can’t afford another Land Of The Lost.

Good, Alright, Bad Or Ugly?
Alright