Adorable or Apathetic, Consistency of Characters Keeps Us Coming Back

Adorable or Apathetic, Consistency of Characters Keeps Us Coming Back by Roxanne McDonald

There was no need to fear the loss of Amanda, for she has made herself an every episode feature character, great comic relief amidst the other adorable brides and grooms.

I had commented in my first discussion of “The Wedding Bells” that it would be a shame to have such a multidimensional character (a.k.a. round character) as Amanda Pontell (played by Missi Pyle) appear for her pre-wedding and wedding scenes, then disappear into the margins of the script, never to be enjoyed again.

But Amanda is baa-ack. First, she returned to of course litigate against the Bells for the gown on fire fiasco (which was really thanks to her coo-coo mother, played by the fabulous Delta Burke, who insists on having a flaming

cherries jubilee as a centerpiece at the reception). That covered episode two. Next, however, she returned to hang out and chit chat, which drove the women bonkers and impelled Jane to confront Amanda and tell her she needed to get a life.
So, next, what does Amanda do? She buys The Wedding Palace…or takes 51% of the shares.

So we will see more of the intrusive, obnoxious bridezilla of yore for many delightful episodes to come. [Yet records at IMDB, for example, show Amanda is in only 4 episodes… so I guess we can’t get too cozy with her being a regular?]

Also returned are Dede Stoller, their first featured runaway bride; Dede returns to apologize, explain her anxiety disorder, and try again with the going through of what we know will turn out to be another intercepted interlocking of loves.

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Wedding Bells Rings in the Laughs

Wedding Bells Rings in the Laughs by Roxanne McDonald

With stellar scenes, superb acting, tight dialogue, and a passel of relevant, relatable, reliable, understated hilarity, David E. Kelley has done it again.

“The Wedding Bells” is the smartest and funniest show to come along in a long, long time. I’m tempted to say not since Seinfeld but will settle with suggesting that not since “Boston Legal,” “Scrubs”, “King of Queens,” and “Everybody Loves Raymond” and then with “Extras” and “The Sarah Silverman Show,” et. al., of course, has such an immaculate and seamless comedy made us laugh out loud–even when we are alone in the room with just the TV (and, thank God, no laugh track).

First, there is great character development—already instantly establishing sympathetic characters by the time the sixty minutes are over: there’s hyper-sexed Sammy Bell (Sarah Jones), who is first seen lining up the groomsmen, asking who wants to bed her, and who then appears with “post-coital hair” from having slept with a member of the wedding party…the groom.

There’s the stoic but subtly sassy Jane Bell (Teri Polo), who appears to be the main protagonist/tragic heroine type upon whose shoulders the debacles will fall and for whom the responsibility of remedying will be.

There’s Jane’s husband, Russell Hawkins (Benjamin King), who will demand a kind of attention that is nagging but endearing at once. With his attraction to opposite sexes discussion, for example, wherein he starts quietly but ends up ranting how “with men it’s chemical; with women it’s cognitive,” takes his fear on an absurd and therefore hilarious slippery slope of paranoid reasoning….

For then there’s Ernesto, the smarmy chef who is Greek but feigns this Italian personage that is less endearing than it is ridiculous.

There’s Annie Bell (Kadee Strickland), who is the dark-haired and prone to brooding sister type, who brings seriousness to her job that has gotta make her crack sometime.

And if a comedy can logically have a comic relief (and I suggest it can, if it is, as “The Wedding Bells” is, a many-layered comedy), there is one of the most severe, tendentious characters, Debbie Quill (Sheree Shepard). Debbie has that tight, almost staccato speaking style—of a comedienne who is so serious, so sober in her assertions that you have to crack up to relieve the pressure of her mad matriarchal lectures:

In one scene, after she has confirmed the importance of the wedding day for the bride (and has thus established the significance of the show’s premise), saying how deflecting from the bride should “never never happen cause its their special special time; each should feel like the only bride on the planet cause it’s her special special time…,” Debbie spots the incoming twins:

“Get your Doublemint twin selves up against the wall. This is Amanda’s wedding week. Now don’t you go around showin’ your cleavage; giving people advice; talking about your matching tourniquets….”

“What? What’s wrong?” she asks.
“[It’s just that] we’re totally afraid of black people.”
“It’s totally cultural.”
“OhmyGod, totally.”

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The Wedding Bells Chime in March, and Likely to the Tune of Great TV

The Wedding Bells Chime in March, and Likely to the Tune of Great TV by Roxanne McDonald

If the promos are any indication, “The Wedding Bells” will be a “Desperate Housewives” meets “Bridezillas”…and better.

Sometimes with movie and television show previews, you get all the choice moments of the work in the teaser, so you feel like you have already seen it or are sorely disappointed when the show premieres and the only quality clips are those you already saw. You know what I mean.

Hopefully this is not the case with “The Wedding Bells” —where in one preview clip a bride to be is getting lectured on the logistics of wedding and through strained throat and gritted teeth snaps, “Shuuuut up…”

or where in another more recent clip an older kind of dowdy woman is insisting the young bridal ceremony guest (I assume also one of the wedding planners) dance with her. Though she resists, she is next seen doing the bunny hop.
The premise of the show is reportedly how sisters Bell (Jane, Sammy, and Annie) inherit and successfully run a wedding planning business but how they are not so successful when it comes to running their own lives. Cast in the lead roles are Teri Polo (Meet the Fockers, Full of It, I’m with Her), Sarah Jones (Huff, “Ugly Betty”), and KaDee Strickland (Walker Payne, Fever Pitch), who have clearly earned their thespian ways to the likely smash hit.

There’s a consistent airing of previews, but there are very few reports on the premiering of “The Wedding Bells”—besides the date, station, and note that it is a David E. Kelly production. Oh, okay. From “Doogie Howser” to “Boston Legal” to “Ally McBeal,” and beyond…we likely have another winning production.