A few thoughts on last night's “The Last Man on Earth” coming up just as soon as I take a blowtorch to these wigs…
Somewhat surprisingly, given FOX's recent struggles (“Empire” aside), “Last Man on Earth” debuted to strong ratings with last week's hour-long premiere. A bit less surprisingly, reaction to the premiere's late introduction of Kristen Schaal as what appeared at the time to be the last woman on earth proved divisive, with some of you (in the comments to both my premiere post, and my interview with Schaal) groaning as the show set her up as an irritating buzzkill for Phil's gross but limitless bachelor lifestyle, and others enjoying the clash between a man who had given up on the rules of civilization and a woman still trying to cling to them.
Schaal told me that Will Forte “told me that his goal is to make the audience go back and forth between who they like.” “Raisin Balls and Wedding Bells” did that to an extent, at least in terms of establishing that both Phil and Carol have been driven mad by their lonely circumstance, and showing that while their different brands of insanity aren't always compatible, they can be. But then it went for the punchline at the end of the episode where the honeymooners ran into another female survivor, this one played by January Jones from “Mad Men,” and I wonder if the whole show is now going to turn into a prolonged joke about a guy who settled for marriage to the wrong woman right before one he found more desirable fell into his lap. I think Forte, Lord and Miller are too smart to do that, but we'll see.
Two weeks and three episodes into this very strange and funny show, what does everyone else think?