The basic premise of The New Normal reads like my wish list for a TV show. Gays? Check. The
The show stars Justin Bartha (National Treasure, The Hangover) and Andrew Rannells (who has done a ton of voice acting and appeared in Girls... but no one's perfect) as a gay couple who decide to have a baby. They meet a young woman, played by Georgia King (I recognized her from an appearance on Merlin), who is trying to turn her life around. She agrees to be their surrogate, they agree to pay her a ridiculous amount of money, and they plan to conceive via in-vitro fertilization using a donor egg. It's your typically boy-meets-boy, boys-impregnate-girl-via-invasive-medical-procedure, wackiness-ensues story.
Rounding out the cast is the surrogate's frankly weird daughter and horrible grandmother, as well as one of the guys' personal assistant/sassy black friend. Is it me, or does it look like Nene Leakes was photo-shopped into most of the promo pics? It makes me wonder if she was a last-minute addition to the cast. Like they were almost ready to launch before they realized that they didn't have a single person of color in the show. Not to belittle Ms. Leakes, who is hilarious and immediately steals any scene she appears in (as she did in Glee). It's just that... for a show that's attempting to redefine The American Family, an almost all-white cast kind of feels like an odd choice. Maybe that's just me.
Anyway, I do like what I've seen so far - the characters are interesting, and the writing seems to be insightful enough to go beyond stereotypes. Only time will tell, I suppose, if this show lives up to it's potential. If not, we can always get our "this baby has two daddies" fix from Modern Family.
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