Big Day, pretty decent show

Today's column is a review of "Big Day," which premieres tomorrow night on ABC:

A wise man named Melvin Kaminsky once said, "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die."

"Big Day," a new series set entirely on the day of a young couple's wedding, understands this concept fundamentally. Anyone who's ever been dumb enough to get themselves involved in planning a lavish wedding (he says while raising his hand sheepishly) no doubt has nightmares about fights over which second cousins to invite, exploding budgets, pushy caterers, etc. To you, that was terrible. But "Big Day" makes those things happen to other people, then multiplies them by a ridiculousness factor of five.

So we have an argument between father and daughter over the groom's decision to walk down the aisle to the theme from "What's Happening!!," a wedding in a neighboring town that's cornered the market on both photographers and romaine lettuce, two ushers with respective crushes on the bride and groom, a tent that's useless against both the rain and wind, and a wedding planner who always looks five seconds away from taking hostages.

Marla Sokoloff from "The Practice" is Alice, a semi-spoiled princess whose only protection from turning into a Bridezilla is the presence of a Momzilla, Jane (Wendie Malick, perfectly nasty as always). Josh Cooke is the groom, Danny, an arrested development case who still works at the camp where he and Alice met as kids. The camp is also where the two of them met best man Skobo (Stephen Rannazzisi), a hound dog without a conscience who sleeps with Alice's sister Becca (Miriam Shor) the night before the wedding and wakes up to realize she accidentally drank his contact lenses, leaving him without glasses and with "the eyesight of, like, a newborn kitten."

To read the rest, click here.