CHRIS QUINN: ‘CTRL' is the funniest new comedy series not on TV
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Writing about a TV series that has already ended its first season is pretty stupid. Then again, some might think the same about a TV network producing a show that it is not airing on its own network.
Actually, in the new “nowness” of our entertainment age, not airing a new show on television might be the emerging norm.
Besides, nearly everyone I've clued in to NBC's new micro series “CTRL” has no clue what I'm talking about. The brilliantly funny five-minute wonder (the show, not me) is the funniest new comedy series not on TV.
For that matter, no new show this year actually airing on a network has been as funny as “CTRL” except for maybe “Michael and Michael Have Issues.”
Tony Hale from “Arrested Development” fame plays Stuart Grundy, a “Dilbert”-like office nobody who discovers he can control his universe though his work computer keyboard after having spilled tea on it.
It's kind of like Adam Sandler's “Click,” except it is a keyboard not a TV remote, it's funny and there is no David Hasselhoff. At least not yet, anyway. I have not seen the season finale.
Through a series of pressing the CTRL and Z keys, Grundy is able to undo his mistakes at work, including knocking his boss around, kissing a co-worker and other non-office-appropriate playtivities.
Each five-minute episode takes you through new world-changing functions, the funniest of which is when Grundy sends his love office interest to the Philippines by hitting the CTRL and home key. Then there was when he silenced his boss with the mute key and continually sent him into the office trash. He also made copies of himself, which he then had to chase down and delete.
I went through something similar the other day when my boss made me chase down and delete a series of Post-it notes proclaiming “QUINN OWNS” that I had plastered to a beloved bathroom stall I had grown to love over the past seven years, but which I now no longer have access to. A cosmic keyboard would have been handy then.
You can watch “CTRL” on www.nbc.com/ctrl/, Hulu.com or on Time Warner's Primetime On Demand channel.
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