Overreacting

I happened upon an episode of According to Jim last night (I swear, it was only because CTV ran it right after Stephen Colbert and I didn’t change the channel fast enough), and was instantly reminded why this show has become a bitter punchline, a three-word summary of all the reasons why the traditional sitcom collapsed. The opening scene had the fat slob husband (Jim Belushi) and his hot wife (Courtney Thorne-Smith) sharing a romantic dessert alone. But Jim gets his wife her favourite dessert, carrot cake, and he gets himself a dessert she doesn’t like, cherry pie. She gets upset because instead of buying something they could share, he bought something he knew she wouldn’t like so he could have the whole piece. Then this escalates into an argument, and finally into a food fight, and then I turned the episode off because I decided I could get more entertainment from getting into bed and counting the specks of lint on my pillow.