'Truth Be Told,' This Is One Of the Worst New Sitcoms

If NBC’s best new sitcom in The Carmichael Show — a comedy that makes good jokes about current issues ranging from racially-charged language to Black Lives Matter — the same network’s newest sitcom, Truth Be Told, is one of the lamest of the year, making bad jokes about current issues ranging from racially-charged language to whether John Mayer appeals only to white people.

That last example suggests how low the stakes are on this show. The premise is about four people best friends Russell (Tone Bell) and Mitch (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), and their wives, Angie (Bresha Webb) and Tracy (Vanessa Lachey). Mitch and Russell are long-time best friends, and feel they can talk frankly about anything and everything. Unfortunately for us, their conversations are about things like whether the woman running a Chinese restaurant they’re in is actually Chinese, and therefore an authentic person.

“I’m not allowed to talk about these things!” yelps Mitch. “But I am,” retorts Russell. The subtext of much of Truth Be Told, created by DJ Nash, is one that plays out on Fox News every night: The notion that whites are increasingly banned from making observations about other races and cultures, while members of other races and cultures are encouraged to do so, while glaring at whites. And if you believe that’s a valid view of how the culture is operating these days, you deserve to watch Hannity every night for a month.

Positioning itself as a progressive sitcom, Truth Be Told tells un-truths in a deeply conservative manner. Another subject that perturbs this show is sex. The premiere introduces a new babysitter for parents Mitch and Tracy. The young woman is polite and a good caregiver, yet Mitch is uncomfortable. “What’s the problem?” asks Russell. “She’s hot!” yelps Mitch. (Gosselaar is required to do a lot of panicked yelping on this show.) The trumped-up tension that passes for plot here is that the babysitter may or may not have “done porn,” which sends both Mitch and Russell into near-fainting spells from the combination of arousal and fear of what their wives may say about such an employee.

Really, do you need me to give you more examples of how lousy Truth Be Told is? If you’re looking for a laugh during this time-period on Friday night, I’d suggest you turn to Dr. Ken. No, wait — that stinks, too. Well, the few times I’ve watched it, I laughed at The CW’s Reign…

Truth Be Told airs Fridays at 8:30 p.m. on NBC.