Disparate Thoughts

(Very) minor spoilers ahead

Who let the TV executives with all the money decide what goes on TV? The decisions they make are so frequently infuriating. There are numerous examples of great TV shows with so much potential that get cancelled far too early. Meanwhile, terrible TV shows get renewed ad nauseam.

Now listen, I’ll admit that I am a degenerate too. I watch my fair share of the likes of Love Island and Real Housewives. I fully understand I’m part of the problem here.

But they cancelled Stumble back in May, and I’m genuinely upset about it.

If you don’t know, Stumble was an NBC sitcom that featured a junior college competitive cheer team from small-town Oklahoma and their disgraced cheer coach.

At face value, the story is rooted in a series of somewhat worn-out tropes. A person at the top of their field suddenly gets catapulted into relative obscurity. They need to pull themselves back out and rise back to the world they left behind. And perhaps along the way, they learn some lessons about how to appreciate life and the people around them. 

Stumble does so much more with its story than just play out the same tired tropes, though. It takes advantage of the standard mockumentary style more than any other show I’ve seen lately, and it does some pretty smart things with it. For instance, every time Coach Boon E. Potter (expertly portrayed by Taran Killam) brings up his head injury or his lack of long-term memory, it cuts to a specific clip of him getting clobbered in a football game in high school. But that’s only a part of the bit. Every time it cuts to the clip, it’s some different, smaller portion of the full ten or fifteen second clip. And the show doesn’t even give you the full clip the first few times you see it. So by the time it runs that gag for the fifth or eighth time a few episodes in, you’re suddenly seeing brand new parts of it. It keeps the joke fresh, and it even adds to the gag itself. It’s almost like he himself only remembers bits and pieces from the accident at any given time.

Another running joke I particularly love is the pronunciation of the small town they live in: Heådltston. If you don’t know how to pronounce that, don’t worry about it, that’s the whole bit. Anytime anyone on the show says the name of the town, they pronounce it differently. The same character will even pronounce the name differently in two different lines in the same scene. Later, you find out the town name comes from the German family with questionable history that runs the candy button factory in town and essentially runs the town. This kind of comedic layering really elevates the show beyond a “normal” comedy.

This show feels like a reincarnation of the likes of Arrested Development and Community, which is maybe why I love it so much. It expertly sets up bits with wordplay and bizarre world building. Some of these bits continually pay off over time, and some of them build over multiple episodes before delivering the punchline. It’s a show that doesn’t take itself too seriously while also delivering smart and punchy comedy. I genuinely haven’t laughed out loud at a show as much as this one since I binged Arrested Development on Netflix many years ago. This kind of show is so rare, which is what makes this cancellation feel so unfair.

So, you may ask, why was it cancelled if it’s such a good show? Well, money, obviously. But besides that, there were a few things working against it. For one, it was yet another sitcom that TV networks have been trying to pump out lately. Many modern sitcoms (Abbott Elementary, St. Denis Medical, etc.) are generally well regarded, but they aren’t as popular as older sitcoms are. The general public is starting to get tired of these kinds of shows, and I totally understand that. These days, if someone is looking for a laugh, most of the time they’ll simply pick a random episode from their favorite comedy from five to thirty years ago. It’s familiar and comforting. 

Another key component to Stumble’s stumble is that no one knew about the show in the first place, so no one knew to go watch it. Peacock ran an ad for it on their own streaming platform, but I only ever saw it a handful of times. Not only that, the ad actually turned me off from the show. It set up jokes and gave away punchlines the very next moment, making it feel like it lacked originality. As such, I pretty much avoided it for the first few weeks it was on air. It didn’t really feel worth the time. Boy was I wrong.

If you haven’t seen it, I think you should give it a shot. If you’re a fan of absurdist humor, wordplay, and underrated actors giving outstanding comedic performances, this might be right up your alley. 

It isn’t a perfect show. It isn’t the best comedy ever created. But given a couple more seasons, it could’ve really grown into something quite special.

But right now, Stumble is simply a one-hit wonder with an ever-growing cult following. Maybe another network will pick the show up and won’t immediately ruin it. Who am I kidding? We’ve probably seen all we’ll ever see of Stumble.