3 out of 5

Created by: Jeremy Bronson

covers season 1

Ah, the harmless sitcom: how gentle are your yuks.

On The Mayor, the youthful, wannabe rap sensation Courtney Rose (Brandon Michael Hall) uses the mayoral elections for his hometown of Fort Grey as a platform to promote his youtube music career, running against the slimebally Ed Gunt, played with comfortable slimebally ease by David Spade.  No one takes Rose’s campaign seriously – his mom and friends (Yvette Nicole Brown, Bernard David Jones, Marcel Spears), Rose himself – and so, wouldn’t ya know, he wins.  Then, in 30 minute weekly blocks, Rose learns lessons about the nature of fame and responsibility, guided through yuk-filled happenstances by his straightlaced aide, Val (Lea Michele).

The harmless sitcom comes bundled with a formula, and Mayor is no exception: Courtney cracks wise and spitballs a Save Fort Grey plan that’s based off of well-intentioned gusto and bravado and naivety, inevitably making things worse and better for Gunt, who constantly slimebally wants to thwart Rose’s campaign while chortling evilly.  Val or mom will say something wise to get Rose to see the light, and a last minute save will bring us to a sitcom realistic compromise, lesson learned.

The Mayor effects this formula with a lot of charm.  The cast is engaging, gets along seemingly naturally, and the concepts tackled are never out if its league – it knows it’s small potatoes, show-wise.  Spade is great at making Gunt both hateable and likeable; Michele might be typecast as the straight man from her Glee days but she does it really dern well; and Rose’s buddies are Tweedledum and Tweedledee stand-ins, but again, there’s heart.  And you could praise a black and Spanish cast in these diversity-requested days, but as this is all of the ‘harmless’ template, e.g. Family Matters and The Cosby Show, said ‘diversity’ is in a carefree bubble, away from the consequences of the real world.

And… maybe that’s exactly what harmless sitcoms are supposed to be.

But The Mayor is so harmless, it’s not a surprise it was canned after a season: it’s a laugh-while-you-watch-it, forget-it-while-you-don’t affair.  The first part of that statement makes it a fun 30 minutes if’n you did choose to watch, though.