The Loop aired from March 2006 until July 2007 on Fox.
Boyish, 24-year-old Sam ( Brett Harrison) was the youngest executive at the loony Chicago headquarters of Trans Alliance, a struggling international airline. Russ ( Philip Baker Hall), his sometimes blustery boss, had great confidence in Sam and gave him lots of responsibility-setting up a low-cost subsidiary, working on a major presentation to the Chinese Department of Transportation and doing a profit analysis to deal with budget problems. Sam's real problems at work were dealing with his cynical , overqualified secretary, Darcy ( Joy Osmanski), who had graduated fourth in her class at MIT, and avoiding the advances of Meryl ( Mimi Rogers), the horny older executive who had the hots for him. Sam shared an apartment with his slacker older brother, Sully ( Eric Christian Olsen), who was more interested in women than work; sexy Lizzy ( Sarah Mason) , who tended bar at the local hangout; and med student Piper ( Amanda Loncar), the college friend who had no idea Sam had a crush on her.
A Review from Variety
The Loop
(Series -- Fox, Wed. March 15,2006 9:30 p.m.)
By BRIAN LOWRY
Filmed in Los Angeles by Olive Bridge Entertainment and Wounded Poodle Prods. in association with 20th Century Fox Television. Executive producers, Will Gluck, Pam Brady; co-executive producer, Ira Ungerleider; producer, Victor Hsu; director, Betty Thomas; writers, Gluck, Brady;
Sam - Bret Harrison
Russ - Philip Baker Hall
Piper - Amanda Loncar
Lizzy - Sarah Mason
Sully - Eric Christian Olsen
Darcy - Joy Osmanski
Meryl - Mimi Rogers
Both loopy and virtually laugh-free, "The Loop" has been significantly revised but not much improved since Fox ordered it last spring, apparently hoping that high energy and a stunningly attractive cast can obscure its shortcomings. The show basically approximates that commercial where a young guy is working an office job and his dorky friends keep bugging him, as a generic twentysomething dude seeks to prove he can straddle adult obligations and youthful pastimes by partying all night and working all day. Sorry, but been there, drank that.
Little in this Chicago-set series (hence the name) feels fresh, including the protagonist's long-standing crush on his gorgeous roommate, his slacker brother and a climactic moment that actually repeats in the two half-hours previewed. In each episode, Sam (Bret Harrison) insists he must get some sleep before going on a drunken bender, and then has to impress his crusty boss (Philip Baker Hall) while making up an idea on the fly.
"Fly" is the operative word, since Sam is the youngest exec at a major airline, where his over-the-top co-workers include the aforementioned CEO, a frustrated MIT grad functioning as his assistant (Joy Osmanski) and a predatory female colleague, Meryl (Mimi Rogers), who keeps coming on to him. Actually, if Sam were a normal guy instead of a sitcom one, he'd jump Meryl on the nearest desk between the opening credits and first commercial break.
Ah, but Sam only has eyes for Piper (Amanda Loncar), who is tethered to a long-distance boyfriend. Sam and Piper live with Sam's older brother (Eric Christian Olsen) and a fourth roommate, Lizzy (Sarah Mason), a bartender who looks like she just stumbled in out of a beer commercial.
Hall yields a few absurd moments with his cantankerous ramblings, enthusing about crushing his employees' spirits and throwing a fit whenever Sam receives personal calls. Olsen, meanwhile, is just the latest half-baked Peter Pan leading a buddy (or here, younger sibling) astray, though the role seems to have been downplayed since its earlier incarnation.
Foremost, "The Loop" feels like a pallid alter ego of Fox's much more promising "Free Ride," which bowed earlier this month. Even the visual gimmickry, which includes little onscreen flashcards saying things like "So into her," has all the flavor of airline peanuts.
Of course, Fox is launching "The Loop" after "American Idol," meaning plenty of folks in the right demos will be delivered to its gates before the show takes up residence Thursdays. Yet despite that connection, it's going to require considerable good fortune, and perhaps a new flight plan, to keep this bird airborne.
A Review from USA TODAY
'The Loop': Bring an airsick bag
By Robert Bianco,
USA TODAY
Fasten your seat belts — it's going to be a bumpy flight.
On the bright side, it's not likely to be a long one.
Set in a struggling airline, which at least counts as a novel sitcom workplace, The Loop may be the first sitcom to induce motion sickness. Seldom has a series expended more energy with less entertaining results.
Arriving Wednesday as the latest Fox show to get an Idol boost, The Loop seems to have been inspired in equal parts by Fox's Free Ride and by a cellphone commercial. Like the ad, the hero is a twentysomething executive, Sam (Bret Harrison), the only gainfully employed member of his crowd.
And as in Free Ride, Sam has a crush on an old friend, Piper (Amanda Loncar), and is put-upon by a slacker best friend, Sully (Eric Christian Olsen) — who also happens to be his brother.
Just to make things more confusing, the actors in the two shows even bear a casual resemblance to each other. It's as if Fox went to the sitcom knockoff outlet store, had trouble deciding between two it sort of liked, and walked out with both. And now, no doubt, it is suffering from buyer's remorse on both counts.
For those trying to keep track, there are two main differences. The Loop is scripted, and Free Ride is improvised. And Loop boasts two amusing if exaggerated performances by the two grown-up pros in the supporting cast: Philip Baker Hall and Mimi Rogers as Sam's airline bosses.
Unfortunately, their screen time is limited, and even when they are on screen, the show's method of attacking each joke with a jackhammer quickly grows wearisome. The blame probably goes more to the script and the direction than to the cast (though Olsen would be wise to bring it down a notch or so). But from a viewer's standpoint, the end result is the same: a sitcom flight you'd be well advised to miss.
Maybe you'd better not fasten those belts after all. They'll just slow your escape.
A Review from The Seattle Post
On TV: Naughty one-liners are the rule in slapstick 'The Loop'
By MELANIE McFARLAND
P-I TELEVISION CRITIC
World peace, nonreliance on fossil fuel ... these and so many other fantastic possibilities could become realities one day. But as long as there is someone on this Earth who giggles at phallic jokes or gas, the species will not have evolved.
That means that for at least a few more centuries, Fox will be able to massage a snort out of anyone who watches a sitcom like "The Loop," a celebration of huevos, nards, family jewels -- keep it going, kids.
This is a guy's show, without question, but by that we mean average guys. Grown-up, twentysomething man-boys (and the rowdy girls who dig 'em) who believe that drinking to the verge of alcohol poisoning every night compensates for the soul-crushing corporate jobs they hold in the day. Guys who watch "American Idol," but don't admit it, or rather, say they watch because their girlfriends are watching.
Dudes and chicks, you'll be rewarded for your suffering by sticking around after Wednesday night's "Idol" results, when "The Loop" gets a 9:30 p.m. preview on KCPQ/13.
You may even be charmed enough to follow the series' riffs to Thursday nights at 8:30. Honestly, its half-hour competition is UPN's "Love, Inc." and NBC's "Four Kings." Hardly epic programming.
"The Loop" isn't a comedy for the ages, either, but at least it captures what every GenXer (and the Y's) knows too well: Most twentysomethings are obsessed with whooping it up and putting off responsibility for as long as possible.
"The Loop" celebrates that idea with slapstick and naughty one-liners at the expense of its hero, Sam (Bret Harrison), the youngest executive at a major airline, hired and promoted on the basis of a thesis he wrote.
Sam lives to impress Russ (Philip Baker Hall) -- a leathery old boss who has no time for losers or excuses -- and in fear of Meryl (Mimi Rogers) -- a vice president and a cougar who takes every verbal exchange with Sam as an opportunity to sexually harass him.
Harrison may be the star, but Hall and Rogers steal much of his thunder. Hall's Russ, in fact, gets some of the best lines. ("We're gonna cut costs," he barks at his executives, "or everyone is going to be sucking off the government teat. And that is one crusty heifer!")
Beyond those two, the other faceless executives seem to detest Sam -- perhaps not as much as his assistant, Darcy (Olympia native Joy Osmanski), whose M.I.T. education could not save her from secretarial drudgery. But among his friends, he is the first to hold a "real" job, making him something of a hero.
Older brother Sully (Eric Christian Olsen), the house clown, is a burnout who leeches off Sam, whatever disposable jobs he can scratch up and their roommate, Lizzy (Sarah Mason), the bartender at their preferred dive. Sam also lives with his college buddy and longtime crush, Piper (Amanda Loncar), whose long-distance boyfriend keeps the boy wonder from making a move.
Typical Fox, sure. But "The Loop" rises a level beyond basic gutter yuks in the dialogue, all the while neatly illustrating the envy of the young corporate employee. That is, the fear that one's peers all have made more lucrative and fulfilling career and life choices.
So Sam puts up with his brother and rails at his laziness, all the while slightly detesting his ability to have a good time at being a loser. He also meets other suits his age who make better money and have sexier résumés. In Thursday night's episode, he falls for a woman who used to work at a bank but traded that in to promote tequila, a job that pays her to party. "I've been drunk since January!" she blurts.
You probably can tell that this thing isn't bound for the sitcom hall of fame, but it's a good time. Had it arrived earlier -- say, when "That '70s Show" was still worthwhile -- Fox may have had a lock on an hour.
"The Loop" is, more than anything, a series that targets the Kelsos and Hydes of the world, and it's young, goofy cast has the same draw. It's still a nice companion in the 8 p.m. hour, even if its lead-in is on a death march.
It relies on a lot of cheap humor, some of which is going to make TV nannies fire off a letter or two to the FCC. "The Loop" uses every silly phrase imaginable to be crude without actually using offensive words, and the effect can be mighty hilarious. If you appreciate that kind of thing.
Those who don't will be scandalized by an upcoming visual gag: Sam shakes a pedometer in his lap underneath an airplane blanket. Setting up that moment takes most of an episode and, like the best dirty jokes, it's funny because it is innocent and utterly rude at the same time. Timeless comedy, from a Fox point of view, and if that means we haven't matured or evolved, so what? At least we're laughing.
An Article from Entertainment Weekly
30-Second Pitch
30-Second Pitch
We gave Will Gluck, co-creator of ''The Loop,'' exactly half a minute to plead a case for his on-the-bubble show -- here's what happened
By Dan Snierson
It happens almost every year. Fox airs a clever, offbeat comedy that draws weak ratings and winds up perched on the lip of cancellation. The latest exhibit: The Loop, a single-camera comedy about an overscheduled dude, Sam, who works at an airline and invents swears like ''crap jackers.'' But instead of us begging the network to renew the show for next season, we decided to grant Loop co-creator Will Gluck exactly 30 seconds in a public forum to plead his own case.
WILL GLUCK: ''This is the funniest show about a 23-year-old guy who works as an executive at an airline since 7th Heaven — by the way, we're going to rename the show 7th Heaven and do a special episode where Sam falls in a well and Jesus saves him with a magic rope. We also promise to buy every Fox executive a pony in the color of their choice. I will give every female executive a lap dance, my co-creator, Pam Brady, will give every male executive a lap dance — some of them the other way around — and more importantly, if the show gets picked up for a second year, we promise to bring the troops home. God bless. Lap dance!''
[Ed. note: Gluck finished in only 26 seconds, so we allowed him to continue for four more seconds.]
GLUCK: ''Ummm... I'm kidding about the lap dance.''
This photo gallery contains pictures for sitcoms of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s and today, as well as dramas, soaps, reality shows, cartoons, game shows, variety shows, talk shows and late night tv photo galleries.
Please note that all pictures uploaded between August 6-31, 2009 were lost in a database crash. While the photos are still on the server, the information (title, description, number of views, who uploaded them, etc.) attached to each photo was lost. In addition, any photo edits, moves or any other account changes from this period were lost. Our apologies to all members who are missing photos and for the downtime. We appreciate you taking the time to share them with us. Click here for archived files by category which are no longer in the database. We would appreciate it if the original uploaders could re-upload them when they have the opportunity. Thank you.
To upload photos, please choose the appropriate category and login with your existing
message board username and password. If you are new, you will need to
register before
uploading any photos. Only ".jpg" files will upload - ".jpeg", ".gif", ".png" or any other image
format will not work. You will need to convert them to ".jpg". Please upload only sitcom
and tv related photos.
To request any photos be removed, please use the "Report Photo" link that is the bottom of
every photo if you are registered and logged in. This is the quickest and easiest method. You can also
send an e-mail with the url of the photo(s). We will also gladly credit or
link to any site that is the original source of any photos.
If you have any questions, comments, requests for new categories, etc. - please contact us.
All images, logos, and other materials are copyright their respective owners. No rights
are given or implied.
Powered by: PhotoPost PHP Copyright 2004-2012 All Enthusiast, Inc.
