Tuesday, July 21st, 2009
04.00 NewsRadio
NewsRadio. Season 3, Episode 11. "The Trainer" The gang discover that Dave is Canadian. Bill joins a gym and fights with Ben Stiller.
The main story here is a testament to the strength of NewsRadio. It's a very slim idea for a story, but it still makes for an amusing episode. Good strong characters, and a great cast, mean you drop flimsy ideas into the mix and they can carry it to 22 minutes of comedy. Dave is revealed to be Canadian, not American. There's plenty of laughs to be had as each one of the ensemble reacts to this shocking revelation. Then, in the second half of the tale, we get to see Dave's reasons for keeping this a secret. Dave might be the 'normal one' in this ensemble, but he's still quirky/odd enough to make this amusing.
Ben Stiller guests in a plot that takes Bill to a Health Club. A standard ploy of sitcoms: bring in a funny guest star to carry an episode. Stiller is always reliable. And he's well-paired with Phil Hartman who plays Bill as relentlessly suspicious and grouchy.
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