'What Outcome Are These Characters Hoping For?'

To: The Tannenbaum Company
From: CBS
Re: We Are Men Episode 101 Rough Cut

We were all fully on board with the title We Are Men and its inherent promise to appeal to the class of people who would read the title and think, "Since I am a we are men, this is probably the show for me" -- namely, men, and not particularly smart ones. But now that the fall schedule has been crowded with other new shows about men manning around, including Dads and Hello Ladies, we might have to think just a little harder about the purpose of our show and what sets it apart and makes it appealing to watch. Maybe we should have had this conversation at the script stage, but now it's too late for that, so let's just look at what we already have and see if it can be salvaged at all.

Act One

:29 Happy Endings already made "impassioned ex stopping protagonist's wedding" the centerpiece of its pilot, and did it much funnier and in a way that told us something about the characters involved. Also, even very small children know that any time this scene takes place, it's an homage to The Graduate; setting the moment to a "rock" version of "Mrs. Robinson" is laying it on kind of thick. Please cut the extremely on-the-nose music cue.

Act Two

:53 Following your hacky cold open with a "five stages of grief" device is really asking a lot of an audience that hasn't even known you for a full minute yet. Maybe instead of holding their hands, you can trust that they get it. I realize this is a show for the less-smart TV viewer, but still.

1:21 Not sure if we've communicated yet what your time slot is, but since it's 8:30 PM (7:30 Central), please cut the not-that-oblique reference to butt stuff.

1:50 Here we arrive at the biggest problem with the episode: the premise that brings the characters together in the first place. In Los Angeles, "quality furnished short-term housing" is not occupied by recently divorced men so much as it is by deluded single mothers and the generally untalented children said mothers are desperate to get started on a career in show business. (Please rent The Hollywood Complex to see what I mean.) Frankly, that motivation is much more interesting than a regular white guy trying to get over his ex. It's too late to revamp the show completely, but if, over time, the quartet of leads got to know some of the aspiring stage mothers in the complex and, gradually, the show became about those characters and the guys got phased out, I wouldn't be mad. Call the new show We Are Mental and you hardly even have to change the signage on your bungalow.

2:41 Are we supposed to feel sorry for Gil (Kal Penn) because his marriage ended when wife caught him in bed with another woman when he happened not to be having sex with her at that moment, but clearly had been otherwise? I don't, and I'm not sure who would.

2:51 Stopping the actual exposition to show a girl in a bikini, who has nothing to do with the story but "deserved a moment," happens why? We're already pretty sure the lead isn't gay, and this poor woman won't even get her SAG card off this. Let her have some dignity.

Act Three

4:14 Male bonding over a cookout is one thing. Stuart (Jerry O'Connell) screaming "She's a whore!" is another. Again: this will air at 8:30.

5:08 BIG THUMBS UP for the reference to all the "actresses" who "come through here"! This is the start of where the show could be going and how to save it! More like this! (Although the actresses that the leads are hitting on should not be the children I mentioned above. I would hope this goes without saying, but you just had a man screaming "whore" about a woman he doesn't know.)

6:01 "I delivered all three of his chubby, ugly girls" hits the ear hard. Maybe they could be either chubby or ugly?

6:15 Don't have Frank (Tony Shalhoub) look at the perfectly attractive girl Carter (Christopher Nicholas Smith (and while I'm here: one first name is plenty)) has his eye on and go, "Her?" We only accepted that from Michael Bluth on Arrested Development after we'd known him for a whole TV season. Furthermore, Frank looks like Tony Shalhoub, so maybe he should cool it.

8:55 The guys breaking into a school and playing basketball with a low net is actually kind of endearing because they are acknowledging and embracing the fact that this pursuit is kind of silly and shameful. That said: Stuart taking his shirt off is not the foolproof punchline you seem to think it is.

11:40 The moment that Carter admits that he lost his whole image of what he thought his life was going to be, and diagnoses the issues with the other three leads, is important because it calls out the ultimate problem with his taking advice from these three broken losers: very strong. Too bad it ends with Carter asking whether Frank really thinks he's going to find happiness with a random twentysomething, and Frank asking, "Is she Asian?"

12:48 Wait, Gil has a child? I realize that he's supposed to have been the most pathetic guy until Carter came along, but knowing he also has a daughter and involving her even tangentially in this shameful, meaningless existence is too sad. Please cut the reference to the daughter and update the show bible so that he's never had one.

Act Four

14:15 Gil doesn't have a daughter. Cut this scene with the kid.

14:55 No one wants to see Tony Shalhoub kiss a girl in her twenties. Having him put his hand up next to her cheek is a good start, but not enough. Please cut away sooner.

15:00 Why are the guys playing videogames in the condo common room? One (if not all of them) has a console in his apartment. It's 2013.

17:16 I take it that "Let's make a pact: we promise we won't let any of us get into another crappy marriage" is the show's thesis statement, but I'm not clear as to whether the show thinks all marriages are crappy? I guess what I'm asking is, what outcome are these characters hoping for? Or is the idea to portray them as so toxic that the viewer will never root for them to get married again because no woman deserves to be with them for any appreciable length of time? The answers to these questions should be obvious from what's on screen. But they are not.

18:43 Obviously, Sarah (Fiona Gubelmann) is not supposed to be the right woman for Carter, and having her wedding interrupted would not bring out the best in any bride, but if we're supposed to get why Carter ever liked Sarah, maybe Fiona should take her castrating rage down about fifteen notches.