The highs and Lowe’s of fame

Silver screen heart-throb, Rob Lowe, returns for another season of The Grinder, writes Munya Vomo

Fox HAVE taken a gamble with The Grinder, a sitcom that features Rob Lowe playing a famous television actor called Dean Sanderson jr, who has to deal with a huge lifestyle change when his hit TV show is cancelled. Understandably, Dean has to make some adjustments and these include moving back home.

It is good to see Lowe in a comedic role on the small screen as he usually only does serious roles on TV.

The premise of this story reminds us of the time when Charlie Sheen was replaced by Ashton Kutcher on the hit show, Two and a Half Men. At the time, Sheen was the highest-paid star in television’s history, and his fortunes plunged after he lost his job. Those around him tried to resuscitate his career by having him star in another show, Anger Management, but it didn’t do any good. In fact, Sheen’s life took a rapid downward spiral into probable depression and he started partying hard, as if he were in college. And a host of things came with that.

The Grinder is a good example of shows that can be tied to real-life events. Another show that comes to mind is 30 Rock, which stars Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin and Tracy Morgan.

The show was created by Fey and she admits that it is loosely based on her stint on Saturday Night Live. She was the head writer at SNL and on 30 Rock we go behind the scenes of a fictional live- sketch show. It gives us an idea of what Trevor Noah’s life could be like today. We learn that not everything is funny and sometimes it’s very hard to get the punchlines right.

Another interesting trend is how certain famous characters from big shows have spin-off shows of their own.

Joey, played by Friends’ Matt leBlanc, is a spin-off that was made to push LeBlanc’s career. After Friends every other cast member was seemingly busy with something, except for him, so there was an idea to rescuscitate his career. Joey did alright, but never attained the success Friends did.

Then there is also the trend where the main characters of a sitcom are named after the main actor. Fresh Prince of Bel Air takes the cake on this one. A young Will Smith, who was still trying to cut his teeth in the music industry, got a role on the show and played a character called Will. Still, it pushed his visibility to the fore because we got to associate one name to the person, the actor and the rapper.

The Grinder airs every Thursday on Fox (DStv channel 125) at 7.45pm.