Brow Beat

The premise of Go On, Matthew Perry’s latest post-Friends foray into the world of sitcoms, may sound vaguely familiar. Not the part where his wife dies and he fails to properly mourn her. The part where, instead of going to a one-on-one therapist the way you might expect someone relatively rich and famous (Perry plays a well-known sports-radio personality) to do, he goes to a community group that meets in what looks like a rec center. A community group where he meets a motley crew of various wacky types. Let’s see, there’s the clueless pseudo-feminist who is also a possible love interest, there’s the cool black guy, the cranky old man who says whatever he wants… Sound familiar yet?

It probably will if you watch Community. But while Community is never less than self-aware about its deployment of these various types, Go On, so far, uses them thoughtlessly, for fairly weak laughs. What results is a pale imitation. With the original currently on life support—i.e., in a Friday night time slot—we decided to point out how heavily this newcomer borrows from its better forebear. Herewith, a visual guide.