A young man impregnates a felon on death row and is charged with bringing up the baby. Before even setting eyes on Raising Hope it was easy to jump to the wrong conclusions. Particularly without realising it was a sitcom. Was this the sequel of a hospital drama starring Mandy Patinkin as a revengeful arsonist surgeon? Or a moralistic show about a high-profile Alaskan family with an aerial-hunting Republican matriarch (played by Tina Fey) forced to leave her teenage daughter's baby with a pack of maternal wolves?
No, TV3's new Sunday night sitcom was nowhere near as gloomy as Chicago Hope nor as ill-conceived as Raising False Hope, (awaiting funding). Instead, it fit the same sarcastic mould as creator Greg Garcia's last show, My Name Is Earl, combined with the coming-of-age humiliation of Everybody Hates Chris and the suburban banalities of Malcolm in the Middle. What a shame. Sarah Palin would make an excellent comedian.
Raising Hope might have raised a few more laughs had it gone with its original title, Keep Hope Alive, although perhaps that's not such a wise wisecrack in this country. It undoubtedly did, however, raise hope for fans of Modern Family when it took over its 7pm timeslot. Treading the line between laughing at, and with, a bogan family, Raising Hope's upbeat characters are the butt of the joke, yet they're determined not to repeat their mistakes. Flash back to a genuinely funny scene where Jimmy's young mother Virginia (the brilliant Martha Plimpton) reminisces about the bad old days, when kids didn't always buckle in, and little Jimmy almost fell out of a rust hole in the bottom of the car.
It's broadly written, in other words. The endearing Jimmy Chance (Lucas Neff) is possibly the only "normal" member of the family. But with a story so ludicrous it's impossible to take seriously, you have to ask yourself the same of the show - will you bother to tune in weekly to watch something that chases cheap laughs by sending the senile Maw Maw around in her undergarments?
Then again, the beauty of a sitcom like this is you don't have to know what happened last week to enjoy it. It's easy to let into your living room, probably because it feels familiar. The friendly white trash family who come together in a time of common crisis is a lot like Earl - in this case, Virginia is this show's Joy, a crass, shoot-from-the-hip talker who softens around Hope only because she wants her to shut up. The baby, initially named Princess Beyonce, is the catalyst for the other characters' development. Cue an endearing scene in which Virginia and husband Burt (Garret Dillahunt) stop thinking of the baby as "it" and reflect on their dangerously free, un-PC past. This is where Garcia's wry tone works well. The show's inherent sweetness is tempered by gross-out moments and risque behaviour. Like when Jimmy goes to change baby Hope's nappy and is so disgusted he vomits all over the baby. Virginia can't believe he's done it but is then so repulsed by the mess she does the same. That was priceless.