KIDDING REVIEW: Jim Carrey Is a Sad TV Host in a Mopey Dramedy

The irony of an outwardly cheerful person who’s actually profoundly sad on the inside is about as deep as Showtime’s Kidding (created by Dave Holstein and premiering Sunday, September 9) gets thematically, despite its obvious efforts to reach for something meaningful. Jim Carrey takes on his first regular TV role in more than 20 years to play children’s TV host Jeff Pickles, a cuddly Mister Rogers type who’s struggling with grief over the death of his teenage son, a separation from his estranged wife Jill (Judy Greer), and an overall existential crisis about the direction of his life. But despite Carrey’s sad-clown credentials, Kidding isn’t nearly as funny or as moving as it aims to be.

Billed as a comedy, the show has very few laughs (or even jokes), and the characters aren’t even particularly charming. It’s a parade of terrible people who are sad all the time, starting with Jeff, the longtime host of Mr. Pickles’ Puppet Time, which has elements of the classic Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood (including Jeff’s sedate demeanor and soft, fatherly wardrobe) as well as more modern kids’ shows, thanks to a cast full of puppet characters created by head puppeteer (and Jeff’s sister) Deirdre (Catherine Keener). The show is a real family affair, and the gruff, bottom line-oriented executive producer Seb (Frank Langella) is actually Jeff and Deirdre’s father, although Kidding plays needlessly coy with that fact during the first episode.

As a father, Seb is a great executive producer, concerned far more with the continued Mr. Pickles merchandising revenue (another departure from the Mister Rogers template) than he is with his son’s mental health. Jeff is still reeling from a car accident that left his son Phil dead, while Phil’s twin brother Will (Cole Allen) is coping by falling in with a crowd of stoner delinquents at school. The accident was also the final breaking point in Jeff and Jill’s marriage, and Jeff now lives in a rundown studio apartment (despite being a multi-millionaire), while Jill and Will stay in the family’s comfortable suburban house (where Jill also entertains her new boyfriend Peter, played by Justin Kirk).

Although multiple episodes of Kidding were directed by Carrey’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind collaborator Michel Gondry, very little of Gondry’s visual invention is on display in the four available for review, even in the numerous puppets (almost all of them grotesque) that Deirdre designs for the Mr. Pickles show. Nor does Kidding have the emotional depth of a movie like Eternal Sunshine, which used sci-fi conceits to amplify the anguished feelings of its main characters. Part of the problem is that despite its relentlessly glum tone, Kidding keeps its characters’ emotions muddled, so that even though it’s obvious that Jeff is sad, it’s hard to understand his specific reactions to things that happen around him.

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Another problem with Kidding is that it’s just plain difficult to buy Jeff as a beloved children’s TV figure, someone so revered that when car thieves discover that they’ve stolen his car, they put all the stripped parts back on it and return it to exactly where they found it. Whether he’s happy or sad, Jeff is straight-up creepy, and the puppets on his show are even more disturbing. But instead of leaning into the potentially surreal, unsettling qualities of Mr. Pickles and his world, the show sticks to a subdued, realistic style, as muted and distant as a patient on too many antidepressants.

Aside from Jeff’s emotional state, it’s also a bit tough to figure out his maturity level; sometimes he’s depicted as naïve to the point of mental disability, barely more worldly than the children his show targets (he seems to be entirely unaware of the definition of some common swear words, or how cell phones work). At other times, he’s brazenly adult, pursuing sexual relationships and planning devious emotional manipulation of the people around him. It’s hard not to sympathize with Jeff as a grieving parent, but the creators seem to be doing their best to counteract that impulse.

The rest of the characters are just as unappealing to spend time with, all wallowing in their own particular unhappinesses. Deirdre is stuck in a slowly crumbling marriage to a closeted husband who’s having an affair with her daughter’s piano teacher, and that daughter has taken to delivering ear-piercing shrieks at random intervals as a reflection of the discord she detects at home. Jill is getting over years of Jeff’s stifling moral rectitude, struggling to define herself away from her famous husband for the first time. And Will is mostly smoking pot and setting off firecrackers, which somehow qualifies him as the most well-adjusted character on the show.

Holstein has a history of working on downbeat pseudo-comedies (Weeds, The Brink, I’m Dying Up Here), and Kidding embraces most of the frustrating qualities of those types of shows without many of their strengths. Carrey is still a fascinating performer, at least, and Kidding represents his most substantial role in several years. His expressive face helps make Jeff amusing to watch, even when it’s unclear how the audience is meant to react to him. That overall lack of clarity keeps Kidding in its mushy, sluggish middle ground, too far away from incisive comedy or heartfelt drama.