Whitney Cummings’s career in television to date has been a bit of a mixed bag. Her self-titled NBC sitcom, Whitney, was trashed by critics and canceled after performing poorly in the ratings. The CBS sitcom she co-created, 2 Broke Girls, also got trashed by critics (including an ugly dust-up with its showrunner at a Q&A a few years ago), but fared better numbers-wise and was sold to TBS in syndication.
All of which is to say, Cummings is back to give it another go, thanks to a deal with HBO that gives her a new half-hour sitcom and stand-up special. From Deadline:
The premium cable network has ordered a pilot for a half-hour comedy inspired by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd’s debate-stirring 2005 book Are Men Necessary? When Sexes Collide. Cummings created, wrote and is starring in the project, described as a comedic portrait of modern relationships that focuses on human nature and social construction using documentary elements and appearances from experts to help the characters understand the biological basis of their behavior.
A Whitney Cummings television show based on a Maureen Dowd book? Oh my. I do not want this. It’s fine if you’re excited about it, really, but I super am not, on paper at least. What I would be excited about, on the other hand, is an entire television series based on the column Maureen Dowd wrote after Colorado legalized weed where she ate too many edibles and freaked all the way out alone in her hotel room. A sampling.
But then I felt a scary shudder go through my body and brain. I barely made it from the desk to the bed, where I lay curled up in a hallucinatory state for the next eight hours. I was thirsty but couldn’t move to get water. Or even turn off the lights. I was panting and paranoid, sure that when the room-service waiter knocked and I didn’t answer, he’d call the police and have me arrested for being unable to handle my candy.
I strained to remember where I was or even what I was wearing, touching my green corduroy jeans and staring at the exposed-brick wall. As my paranoia deepened, I became convinced that I had died and no one was telling me.
It took all night before it began to wear off, distressingly slowly. The next day, a medical consultant at an edibles plant where I was conducting an interview mentioned that candy bars like that are supposed to be cut into 16 pieces for novices; but that recommendation hadn’t been on the label.
Now that would be quality television.
