Battle Of The Reluctant And Inappropriate Quasi-Parental Figures

Which character is a bigger improvement upon the feature-film original?

Oh boy, this one is nooooooo contest. As much as I love David Walton, star of the About A Boy show -- which is a lot, in case he asks; I would French his face -- but he's not a better Will than Hugh Grant, the one in the movie. Movie Will came by his money even more shamefully: instead of living off the royalties from a dumb Christmas song he wrote, Movie Will benefits from the proceeds of a dumb Christmas song his dad wrote, which makes him more tragic and thus compelling. Plus the accent.

On the other hand, TV's Bad Teacher Bad Teacher had nowhere to go but up with me. I kind of hate Cameron Diaz (who played Elizabeth in the movie), and I kind of adore Ari Graynor (who plays the TV show's Meredith). But my personal feelings aside, Meredith has a more interesting goal to achieve that, if you buy into the show's premise, makes her easier to root for: instead of just aiming to win a contest with a cash prize she plans to use to get a boob job, like Elizabeth, she's lying her way into a teaching job to put herself in the path of hot, rich, divorced dads in the hope that one of them will marry her and replace the ex who just tossed her. Do I wish that, instead of sort of taking over from Cameron Diaz, Graynor was reprising her role in a TV adaptation of For A Good Time, Call...? Of course. But I'm okay with this too.

Winner: Meredith, Bad Teacher.

Which is more believable caving to be a mentor?

Seriously tough call. In a vacuum, I would almost always say that a single, rich, shiftless dude would have less inclination than a woman in the same situation, not because women are biologically determined to be nurturers or any of that horseshit, but women tend to be socialized that way. However, Meredith is a crass opportunist who doesn't care about adults who can't do anything for her; kids are of even less use. Will lives one thin wall away from the kid who's been mooching onto him, but Meredith spends eight hours a day in close quarters with hers too. So it's kind of equally unbelievable that either of them would take on the mentor mantle.

Winner: Tie.

Which show's kid is more in need of a cool/iffy adult friend?

Meredith is really only thrown into Lily's path when Meredith happens to mention to Lily's stepmother that she has no plans and thus accidentally volunteers herself to pick Lily up from school. And while Lily clearly has popularity problems, she does have a couple of friends and an activity (albeit a dorky one) to keep her occupied when she's away from her parents' typical L.A. benign neglect. But About A Boy's Marcus is in actual danger of, as Will puts it, going full-on Norman Bates due to the overly attentive attentions of his doting mother, Fiona. Will can actually teach Marcus how to be a kid as opposed to a fortysomething woman's substitute man-friend, and he should. And once he does, maybe he can move on to burning all his Peruvian sweaters.

Winner: About A Boy.

Which plays better off the supporting cast?

I guess About A Boy couldn't have worked as a TV show if it mostly focused, like the film, only on Will, Fiona, and Marcus, so the show's producers had to work in some friends for Will. But I just can't buy that Will, a single person in San Francisco, spends that much time with Andy, a married father of three who lives in the East Bay. I mean, one of Andy's kids is under age one. The people I know who've had kids have basically not been able to get further away from them than the back yard until they're practically in school. "But maybe Laurie is just really generous taking on parenting the kids alone because she knows friend time is important to Andy?" First, the Laurie we've seen doesn't seem to be generous in any respect. Second, she hates Will, and therefore would be very unlikely to put herself out so that Andy can hang out with him. All this is by way of saying that, as much as I enjoy Al Madrigal, I never buy any of his interactions with Will because any time Will gets to see him, it feels contrived. Will and Fiona are fine, and Marcus is...coming along, I guess. I still can't stop comparing him to the far superior Movie Marcus, though.

Bad Teacher's cast may not include any Oscar nominees, but it's better by far. The kids don't get as much heavy lifting to do: always a plus. Sara Gilbert takes over the role of Actually Decent Teacher Who Shows Bad Teacher The Ropes from the film's Phyllis Smith, giving their relationship more of an ill-advised hero-worship vibe. Kristin Davis is perfectly cast as the OCD superteacher criticizing the lead's techniques and wardrobe. But MOST IMPORTANTLY OF ALL, Ryan Hansen is a gigantic upgrade from the movie's Jason Segel as the only-slightly-less-irresponsible coach/obvious eventual love interest, and he and Graynor have crazy chemistry, because of course they do: they're great individually and even greater together, and I am so happy the world has come around to making Ryan Hansen the go-to so-wrong-he's-right jerk love interest. It's about damn time.

Winner: Meredith, Bad Teacher.

Which is funnier?

Maybe I responded so positively to the Bad Teacher pilot because my expectations for midseason sitcoms are so low by default, and because I feel like it's been so long since there's been a real dick of a female sitcom character that I enjoyed rooting for. (The last one is maybe...Karen Walker? DO I HAVE TO GO BACK TO KAREN WALKER?!) But Meredith caving to the better angels of her nature and stomping it out in her neon yellow safety vest to support her dorky girl charges -- which could have been sufficiently saccharine to neuter her -- worked for me because she is SO MUCH MEANER to the mean girls than they are. Also because we've already seen her confidently tell some students that "bitches can even be President" and turn an apple into a bong.

I'm guess mostly I'm just hopeful that Meredith won't have her edges sanded as far off as Will already has. I mean, fine, I guess even a single person has to take a kid to a hospital when he drops a knife and stabs himself in the foot, but you know what I mean. Will is Learning Lessons in every episode, and I'm counting on Meredith to be, if you'll pardon the phrase, teaching more lessons...in how to be terrible most of the time and get exactly what you want in the process. Not a recipe for how to be a good person, but definitely something I enjoy in a sitcom character.

Winner: Bad Teacher.

Verdict

Look, if Ari Graynor and David Walton were standing in front of me wanting to make out...I was going to say my choice would be different, but it probably wouldn't; they're both pretty foxy. But at this point, I'm just watching About A Boy to see if it gets to be any good; with Bad Teacher, I'm actually cautiously optimistic about the potential it has to get even better than its pretty strong start.

Winner: Bad Teacher.