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Meet Jimmy Chance (Lucas Neff). He had sex with a pretty, nice and clever girl named Lucy and was, as you would be, rather pleased with himself. Unfortunately, she turned out to be a bit of a black widow. After Jimmy’s mother hits Lucy over the head with a TV and they call the police, he thought it was all over. Fast-forward 7 months though, and it turns out that as well as banged up, Lucy is also knocked up. She gets the electric chair, and Jimmy gets the baby - the innovatively named Princess Béyonce (aka Hope).
Jimmy is kind of inept. He doesn’t have any money since he quit his job as a pool cleaner (because his boss is an idiot who spends his time harassing his employees). Jimmy’s boss is also his dad and he lives at home with his parents, his deadbeat cousin and his great grandma who rarely remembers to wear a top and keeps sexually harassing Jimmy because she thinks he’s her late husband. He can barely even look after himself never mind his child. To be honest, he’s a bit of an idiot (cue ‘hilarious’ scenes of pathetically poor parenting).
Some bits were actually funny. Sabrina (the love interest) has some good lines, and Virginia (Jimmy’s mum, who gave `birth to him at 15) is a well written character, as is Jimmy himself on the whole. I also thought that using a rubber glove with a tiny hole in it made a very inventive bottle for the baby. However, it’s very clear that being the first, this episode is both an experiment and also less well-rounded than it could have been, falling rather flat and ineffective at times whilst it concentrates on setting things up. Sometimes, it simply just wasn’t funny - copious throwing up over a baby doesn’t make me laugh, although I can’t speak for everyone.
In the end though, I can see the potential in Raising Hope. Some bits really worked and there were also some nice moments, such as the flashbacks to when Jimmy was a baby and the teenage Virginia and Burt were working things out for themselves. These moments were either amusing or very sweet. Unexpected baby comedies are very popular at the moment for some reason and the single dad element adds a bit of a twist so I’m sure it’ll get plenty of viewers. I also have faith that My Name Is Earl’s Greg Garcia can build this programme into a success. (Raising Hope clearly owes a lot to his previous white trash project as it has very similar characters - although they are a little bit more respectable in that they have jobs and live in an actual house, albeit rent-free through taking advantage of their rarely lucid grandma.) I hope that Raising Hope can fulfill its potential, emulate the success of My Name Is Earl and provides us with a show worthy of following each week.
Raising Hope airs on Thursdays at 10pm on Sky1
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