3 out of 5

Created by: Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider

Comedies: stop trying to be serious.  I don’t need an emotional backbone in my goofy comedies.  There are things for that, called ‘dramedies,’ and/or if you want to be able to do the Comedy Central hip cultured awareness breed of comedy and do something more serious on occasion, okay, but spread it out.  Not every episode has to be smart or clever.  Please opt to be stupid most – like 9 out of 10 episodes – of the time.

In ‘The Other Two,’ languishing millenials Cary (Drew Tarver) and Brooke (Heléne Yorke) watch with disbelief as their brother, Chase, becomes a youtube Bieber-esque sensation, drawing quite into contrast their own go-nowhere careers and lives.  Mum Molly Shannon and agent Ken Marino are there to add to varying shades of innocent silliness to the relationship, with the former whole-heartedly supporting her star son with over-the-top parent exuberance, and the latter incompetently managing deals and day-to-days, woefully out of touch with modern hashtag lingo.

The Other Two starts out at its funniest: Cary and Brooke as perpetual losers (Cary’s an actor whose sole credit is in a commercial where he smells a fart; Brooke’s floats from whim to whim with amusing dismissiveness); Marino and Shannon as clueless adults; Chase rather innocently coming by his stardom; all of these parts playing effectively off one another to parody always-on culture, stardom, and hitting enough “yeah, I’ve been there” beats to keep Cary and Brooke relatable.  But then the show has to go and try to “develop” things and build in more family history, and more relationships, and while we never exactly step out of comedy territory, we get a small handful of monologues later on that are then “cleverly” juxtaposed with jokes right after, and it’s just a very, very recognizable modern too-aware style that wants to be stupid and respectable at the same time.  The Other Two already treads a fairly familiar SNL style of humor (both writers are of that pedigree), so the extra dose of familiarity doesn’t help make it stand out.

The jokes are funny, and the performances are good.  Just drop the serious bits.