Number 269 on Earl's List: Jumped the shark

Our favorite new show of last year was undoubtedly My Name is Earl. This NBC sitcom features Jason Lee as Earl Hickey, a low-life petty crook who has lived a life of selfishness and greed. Earl cheats, steals, cons, and generally has done nothing constructive his entire life.

All that changes when Earl buys a $100,000 lottery ticket. As he's celebrating, he's hit by a car and loses the ticket. While recovering in the hospital, he is introduced to the concept of Karma and vows to reform his life. To that end, he makes a list of all the bad things he's ever done and resolves to make up for all of them. He's helped (or hindered) by his dim-witted but generally benign brother, Randy, the sexy maid Catalina, his immature, selfish ex-wife, Joy, and her seemingly simple yet smart husband, Darnell. There are also a host of townfolk who appear from time to time to help (or hinder) Earl. At the end of the first episode, having changed direction in his life, Earl gets the lottery ticket back and uses the funds to help him cross things off the list.

What made the show great was the charm of all the characters and its simple yet compelling morality. Earl's interactions with the townfolk as he tried to amend for past mistakes was funny and touching, something that's hard to pull off consistently. Earl made for an improbable hero but his steadfast devotion to doing the right thing made him the moral center of the show. As the first season progressed, it was nice to see that not only was Earl improving his life, but also improving the lives of those around him. On occasion, you even saw that his behavior was rubbing off on others who were themselves learning to do the right thing.

The second season has been disastrous. What happened? The show has become gimmicky and cutesy, relying overmuch on guest appearances and character without telling an interesting story. There have been entire episodes that didn't deal with Earl's list. A recent episode was a parody of Cops involving Earl and company. It was well done and funny, but not relevant to the show.

The show has always featured flashbacks to Earl's behavior before he embraced Karma. That contrast, between good Earl and bad Earl, was fun to see in limited doses. This season, however, we've seen way too much of bad Earl. Earl became obsessed with gambling, got Catalina deported and didn't try very hard to get her back, and used other people for his own needs. In short, Earl has been backsliding. The result is that the show has lost its center, the foundation around which the show was built. As Earl has lost his moral focus, the show has become almost a parody of itself. Crossing things off the list has become an afterthought.

I hope that the show can reform itself and get back to what made it great. If not, it will be another show that found initial success, but quickly lost its way.