Nov 02 2009
“The League” Won’t Last Very Long
After last week’s episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, I decided to give a chance to FX’s newest comedy, The League. The concept of the League is simple enough - a group of guys try to balance their lives with an ultra-competitive fantasy football league - and as a fantasy footballer myself, I thought it had a lot of potential. Hopefully, I thought, The League wouldn’t be a series of Bud Light commercials passing as a series of vignettes passing as a television comedy. As it turns out, The League really wasn’t very funny, but the show failed on a much more fundamental level. Keep reading for the full review.
Unfortunately, The League plays like an extended beer commercial, although toned down a bit. A group of thirty-something men passionately participate in a fantasy football league, and the results are for the most part pretty predictable. The men act as if winning the league is the most important thing in the world, and the league’s draft, season, playoffs, and championship are all major events in their lives. If the show was character-driven, it would have a chance to be something worth watching, but sadly all The League has to offer are a couple twists on old cliches and underwhelming banter. The League comes on pretty late at night on FX, but - unlike Always Sunny - the show doesn’t take advantage of its time slot or network. The trash-talking between the members of the fantasy football league is incredibly tame, which is a shame considering the late night slow allows the writers of the show to be creative. Instead of clever, biting dialogue, we get lines like “You guys are so dead this year, this trophy is gonna be mine.” Oh yeah, the winner of the league in each season gets possession of a giant trophy.
The League’s characters are mostly forgettable. There’s the current league champ, a disheveled dude who - in true beer commercial form - is dating a women who is disproportionately better looking than he is and is, of course, loathe to the idea of anything fantasy football related. There’s the vanilla guy, whose wife actually runs his fantasy football team (totally unrealistic), there’s the stoner who would never be friends with guys like this in the first place, and there’s the incredibly dorky guy who has a lot of money because hey, nerds are smart. There’s also a couple more members of the league, but like I said, they’re all pretty forgettable. These six guys make up the league in The League, and maybe that’s the shows biggest problem.
For a show about fantasy football to work - even a comedy - the writers need to accurately portray fantasy football. The obvious demographic for The League is young men who play fantasy football, so any inaccuracies will be noticed. The writers knew, for example, that Adrian Peterson should be and is the consensus number one fantasy football player. So when one guy gets the number one pick and claims that he’s going to take Peterson, the league in The League becomes one that fantasy football fans should be able to relate to. I say “should be,” because a huge oversight on the part of the writers makes the league in The League unrealistic: there are only six players/teams in the league, and almost all competitive fantasy football leagues have eight or ten players/team.
This isn’t nitpicking, because it’s not minor. It’s a glaring error, and it hurts the show tremendously. Nobody is going to want to watch a show about a bunch of guys in a fantasy football league if the league itself isn’t realistic. After all, I can’t imagine anyone other than a fantasy football fan watching The League. Perhaps having interesting characters and witty dialogue could save a show like this, but that isn’t the case here. Why not write in two or four more characters and keep them minor? They can appear in every third episode or so. I don’t want to sound like I hate this show, because I don’t. It’s just that it’s nothing new. It’s disappointing because I thought the show had potential. Maybe it’ll get better, but I won’t be watching to find out.
Did anyone else catch this show? What’d you think? If you liked it, do you play fantasy football?
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What is fantasy football? Is it about imaginary teams? How do you get results then?
During the draft they did mention that four other members were either out of town and on auto draft of giving picks over the phone. It just seemed like a cop out, and I agree the show didn’t make me laugh once.
Another thing, the idea of getting high off of pubes? Has anyone on that show actually smoked weed before? I say that, and I am a huge Paul Scheer fan because of Human Giant, but i thought it was lame.
@ Deepbackground
How was it, then, that the six main guys were able to determine draft order by each picking a number, which was in turn assigned to a random child in a race? There were six kids for six picks…do the four guys not there pick 7-10? It just didn’t make sense, and if it did, it wasn’t clear at all.
And the getting high on pubes thing was idiotic. It seems to me that this is a show that tries to be shocking and vulgar but is really just unfunny and lame.
Thanks for reading.
[…] “The League” Won’t Last Very Long (Unreality) […]
Agreed, What bothered me most was the fact that this show is on FX (as noted by Madison) and can get away with so much more. It’s almost not fair to have it air after Sunny because Sunny pushes its FCC limits to a perfect degree… and then we are presented with a show that resorts to pubes as a shock factor.
I didn’t see this show, but I have witnessed first hand how freaking crazy guys can get about fantasy football. I was a bigger topic at a recent wedding then the wedding itself (it was pretty lame though…we got candy coated sunflower seeds as a parting gift. seriously). My neighbors were literally taking turns sitting at a table at the bar talking to the “mediator” who was the only one with any common sense. Kudos to those who put the time and energy in to doing fantasy football, but I’d rather just watch my Colts go undefeated.
@ Laura
You’re a Colts fan? Being from Purdue, do you support Brees and the Saints?
I love my colts! And of course I’m a drew brees fan! I sadly wasn’t there for brees in his glory days at purdue. Curtis painter was the qb when I was at purdue who ironically enough is a backup backup qb for the colts now.
I mean, how can you not like drew brees?
It’s like an after school special suck it bitches!
!YOU ALL ARE R-TARDS!
As for the stoner (he’s called Taco) being friends with these guys, I thought the same thing… it would never happen. However, it turns out that he’s the younger brother of one of the other guys (Kevin) in the League. We find this out when he dedicates a song to his sister-in-law Jenny (Kevin’s wife). He’s actually the only guy (other than 3-time champion Pete) to have won the League.
The League is F’in hilarious. It will be around for a long long time!
I think that The League is hysterical and I hope it is around for a long time. I think that reducing it to a series of Bud Light commercials is ridiculous. You are entitled to your opinion of course, but I definitely disagree.
Viva La League!
Ok, so there are “out of towners” on auto-draft. And when determining the picks, there were more than 6 kids in the potato sack race, and even though it wasn’t mentioned, one would assume the other kids were running for the “out of towners.”
As mentioned earlier, Taco is Kevin’s younger brother. So again, get the facts straight before you post this article.
Also, as far the smoking pubes thing that was mentioned, For those who don’t understand how to follow story lines.
The character Andre, is like the friend who gets picked on all the time. He makes dumb picks & trades, and is the brunt of most of the jokes. He framed the first joint he ever smoked in his apartment. He claims to have gotten really high off of it, however his friends never got around to mentioning it was just Kevin’s pubic hair. He obviously never got high off of the pubes and was just saying he got high to fit in with the guys, yet again giving them another reason to bust on him. So of course, you idiots, you can’t get high off of pubic hair. Hence the point of the whole joke you dumn idiot!
@ Frank
Oh, I “got” the pubes in the joint joke. It was just unbelievably lame. Thanks for laboriously explaining it, though I don’t think anyone was complaining that they didn’t get the joke - just that it sucked.
Either that or I guess I don’t get “dumn” humor.
Seriously, some of you people amaze me.
Don’t know or care about this show or fantasy football. Hell the show could have already been taken off the air for all I know, but I really enjoy reading the posts, and I usually just leave it at that, however it is simply too delicious that good ole’ Frank up here misspelled dumb. Hilarious! Madison, I can’t weight four moore uv yore ideeahtik postes. The raterds rilly cum owt uv the wudwerk too inslut yore dumn ass. Jesus guys, it’s called proofreading. Look it up. Practice it. Use it. Either that or learn how to spell the damb words before you type them. Hahahaahahahahahaha
Well, the show got picked up for a 13 episode second season and did pretty good for FX so I have a feeling you are wrong about it not lasting long. I love to see how sexism is alive and well in your post because the guys wife running his team is “totally unrealistic”. You must be a real mouth breather.
@ Aneros
I was wrong about the show not lasting long, but I’m right about about the guy’s wife running his team being unrealistic. Trust me - I’ve participated in literally dozens of leagues, that NEVER happens. It’s not sexism, it’s fact.
Nice little insult at the end of your comment. I always appreciate unwarranted hostility.
So because something has never happened to you it’s unrealistic? I know women who are rabid football fans and are a lot like the character Jenny on the show. And do you think your friends would really tell you if their wives were running their team anyway? My insult wasn’t unwarranted hostility, it was squarely directed at you blatant sexism.
At least you’re a fan of the movie Moon so I guess all hope isn’t lost
@ Aneros
No, it’s unrealistic because not only has it never happened to me (which is a pretty large sample size already), but I am pretty into fantasy sports, as are most of my friends, and I’ve never even heard of this situation. It just doesn’t happen. I’ve met one girl in my entire life who took fantasy sports seriously. It’s uncommon, and that’s putting it lightly.
There’s such a huge difference between a woman being a big football or sports fan (of course, there are MANY), and being an avid fantasy football player that’s it’s really not even worth discussing. If you can’t distinguish between the two, I’m sorry.
Thanks for reading. And yes, Moon rules.
http://www.girlsfantasyfootball.com/
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112811315
http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/media/media-world-ranks-of-women-fantasy-football-players-growing/19125945/
The list goes on and on.
And sorry, you and your group of friends is not a large sample size. I’ll be generous and say that your sample size is 200. Out of the many millions of people playing fantasy football, your sample size is minuscule.
From the articles you linked, 12% of women play fantasy football. Of those 12%, do you really think most of them are rabid fantasy football fans? And of those rabid fantasy football fans, how many of them control their husbands and the teams? It’s a very, very small percentage.
It’s not that the woman on the show played fantasy football, it’s her attitude and passion for the game that I didn’t buy. Maybe you did, and that’s wonderful.
Gold jacket, green jacket who gives a shit? Am I right you guys??