Narbonic by Shaenon Garrity is one of the funniest daily comics in existence (really why this is not in every newspaper in the country is beyond me) but its most recent storyline appears to be (?)resolving one of its long running threads – Dave and Helen’s attraction to each other. So far Garrity has handled this new development amazingly well.
She’ll want to avoid the Moonlighting syndrone (that amazing television show went straight down after the leads got together. Of course that might have also had something to do with co-star Cybil Shepherd seeming to go insane at the time as well) but I’m not quite sure this will go into Seinfeld territory either (Seinfeld’s treatment of a brief romantic tension between Jerry and Elaine was handled by quickly defusing that storyline and it became just another minor plot point in the increasingly complex Seinfeld “world”).
In any event, if anyone had any doubt why Garrity was nominated for Outstanding Writing and Outstanding Comedic Comic for this year’s WCCAs, the deft handling of this storyline is Exhibit A.
I don’t think the Seinfeld thing was “handled” well at all. It’s hilarious listening to the DVD commentary, when Larry and Jerry slowly realize that they TOTALLY FORGOT that the last episode of the season ended with Jerry and Elaine as quite the couple. “That was how we ended it?… Well, what happened?… I guess it didn’t work out!… Maybe it’s not too late to go back and edit this?”
To hear them tell it, they were totally exhausted at that point (like, Vietnam-exhausted) and didn’t think they’d be renewed anyway, so the amnesia’s kind of understandable. Still, I think Shaenon can do a bit better than THAT.