![]() The incident also emboldens Cassie to step up from the house’s resident girlfriend and support figure to take aim at a slot in the main room. Thus when a tragedy rocks the club's tight-knit community, another player has a chance to rise, sprouting heated conflict where there is usually friendly, supportive rivalry. Goldie herself tightly monitors the ecosystem of the place. Another Goldie’s regular, Cassie Feder (Ari Graynor), grinds away in The Cellar, the club’s lower level where green comics fight for their break and hone their sets into the vaunted tight 15 minutes. Goldie herself (Melissa Leo) maintains a stable of regular performers whom she carefully cultivates before offering them up to the major leagues, that is “The Tonight Show,” Burt Sugarman’s “Midnight Special” or other TV variety gigs.īut Goldie’s has a clear hierarchy, and its owner favors some over the others - mainly a crew of men that includes Ralph King (Erik Griffin), Bill Hobbs (Andrew Santino) and Edgar Martinez (Al Madrigal). In “Dying,” clubs such as Goldie’s represent the minor leagues, scoured regularly by agents hunting for the next hot act. Making it onto Carson’s stage, killing a set, then earning an invite over to the hallowed guest couch was the comedian’s version of leveling up. For a new comic, “The Tonight Show” was the moon shot, the gateway to stardom. Theoretically “I’m Dying Up Here” could add to this by diving into the sweaty wildness of a bygone time in which the kingmakers were few - or, really, pretty much only Johnny Carson. Of course, the brass ring remains the starring role in a sitcom or solo hour=long specials produced by the likes of HBO, Netflix, Comedy Central and, yes, Showtime. A burgeoning streaming service Seeso exists solely to promote classic performances and newcomers. Some of these takes range from surreal and artistically extravagant presentations in shows like FX’s “Louie” to the friendly if bedraggled realism of Pete Holmes’ HBO half-hour show “Crashing.” Nowadays comedians have numerous paths to widespread notoriety via a variety of platforms - viral shorts, podcasts, downloadable products. The entertainment field is flush with television series depicting the trial and skill involved in uniting a room filled with strangers with laughter. “I’m Dying Up Here” arrives during a period of high interest in the world of stand-up comedy and the lives of the people who create it. Snippets of characters delivering sets barely elicit a snort, and yet the audience at the club breaks into peals of laughter that is not earned. ![]() Sadly “I’m Dying Up Here,” premiering on Sunday at 10 p.m., does not suitably answer that question. But shouldn’t a series about stand-up make a viewer laugh sometimes? Otherwise a person is left to wonder what makes the people onstage who are talking into a black-blanketed room compelling enough to hang a show on their exploits. It's not that a show like this should be a nonstop giggle fest, understand. ![]() ![]() ![]() And this setting presents another symptom of the script's weakness: Rarely, if ever, does it coax forth laughter. Executive produced by Jim Carrey, "Dying" also happens to be a period piece about the hardscrabble 1970s stand-up comedy scene in Los Angeles. Too many great or even very good series are on television right now for a series like Showtime’s “I’m Dying Up Here,” a drama about stand-up comedians, to get away with a level of execution that’s best described as serviceable. ![]()
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