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The Last Man on Earth - Sundays at 9:30PM ET/PT on Fox
Premieres on Sunday, March 1, 2015 at 9:00PM ET/PT

by Skees

Phil Miller is a little lonely, and as bad as that may seem, you haven't met anybody as lonely as Phil Miller. A virus has seemingly spread across the planet, leaving Phil as the last man on Earth... maybe. But he hopes that he is wrong, and is out on an RV trip around the world to prove himself wrong. But after making that long trip, he comes home empty-handed and is ready to give up on it all... until he makes a discovery that will change his life forever.

Cast Details:

Note: The cast members listed are are those credited for the first three episodes.

Will Forte as Phil Miller
Kristen Schaal as Carol Pilbasian

Will Forte (Phil Miller) is best known for his role on Saturday Night Live, where he was a cast member from 2002 until 2010. Outside of that, he has mostly done voice work on television, including roles in Clone High, Sit Down, Shut Up, Allen Gregory, and The Cleveland Show, among many others. He has also appeared in movies such as Beerfest, Baby Mama, and most notably, MacGruber.

Kristen Schaal (Carol Pilbasian) is best known for her roles of Mel on the series Flight of the Conchords and Hazel on 30 Rock. She is also the voice of Louise on another Sunday night series on Fox, Bob's Burgers. She has had guest roles in several series, including Ugly Betty, How I Met Your Mother, Wilfred, and Glee.

Pilot Plot:

"Alive in Tucson" (Airs March 1 at 9:00PM ET)

Phil Miller is lost... very lost. As it turns out, everybody that he knows in the whole world is gone after a virus infects almost everybody, and he is trying his best to find somebody (just anybody) else who survived the disaster by traveling the country in his RV. After not succeeding, he tries to make it the best he can, and after he a while, he comes to what he thinks is the best possible solution for him... or maybe not.

"Elephant in the Room" (Airs March 1 at 9:30PM ET)

It initially seems that things get a little better for Phil when he determines that he is not alone in the world, but now that he has met Carol, he has run into new problems. The biggest of those problems is Carol, who is perhaps making him more miserable than he would be if he were alone. But they're the last two (maybe?) people on earth, and there is only one way for society to survive, and that will take something a bit more than constant bickering from the last two people on earth.

"Raisinballs and Wedding Bells" (Airs March 8 at 9:30PM ET)

Being the last two (for now, anyway) people on earth has caused Phil and Carol to have to consider what their future holds, and decisions that must be made. The problem is that Carol is ready to make those decisions and Phil would rather start a few fires.

Analysis:

First, it should be clear that the title of the series is somewhat misleading (and that is a good thing). It suggests that it is a series that stars one person who is all alone in the world. Throughout most of the pilot, that was true, and it seemed to set up the basis for a series that wasn't going to go anywhere at all. But once Phil encountered Carol, the dynamics of the pilot changed significantly, for the better. Until that time, though, the pilot really did drag on, and not exactly in a good way.

Fortunately, the first development in the series, Phil's discovery of Carol, finally made the series have some meaning. Phil is just a guy trying to improvise and survive in the world by any means necessary, with those means including using the swimming pool as his toilet (with a hole cut out on the diving board). Carol, on the other hand, is the typical Kristen Schaal type of character who is more than just a little borderline crazy, but perhaps a little beyond that border, particularly with her insistence upon maintaining all of the rules of society even when society is not there, all the way from obeying all of the traffic laws to abstaining from premarital sex.

Another rare thing about this series, at least in comparison to most sitcoms on broadcast TV these days, is that it is actually funny. There are a lot of great sitcoms out there that are well-written and do have some funny moments, but it has become increasingly rare to find a sitcom that goes out of its way to be funny in the modern era. This one does. A lot of the laughs in the pilot is thanks to Kristen Schaal, who seemingly never disappoints with the way that she portrays her characters.

Something else that I enjoyed (though it is something that could be dangerous to the possibility of the series succeeding) is how none of the episodes seem to be self-contained. Nothing is resolved in 30 minutes, and by the end of each episode, it seems that a whole new problem (often related to the original problem) has popped up.

However, being on broadcast television is the major pitfall of this series. It isn't the type of series that is going to work with broadcast television audiences. There are two reasons for this, one being that it is by no mean a "real world" sitcom like every other successful sitcom on the major networks, and the other being that it is a serial sitcom, where you almost need to captivate the audience at the pilot (because the guy who starts watching with episode 5 will already be lost). It really had the feeling of the type of show that FX or FXX should be airing, not something on Fox, and certainly not something on the Fox Sunday night lineup.

Conclusion:

The pilot started off very slow and at first I thought there was no way that I was going to like the series. After all, you can't make a series work with just a single cast member, and most of the pilot seemed to suggest that was what the series would be like. But as the pilot progressed, it really did become something that I think that I'll enjoy seeing... at least for as long as it lasts.

The serial nature of this show could be a little problematic as well. There have been a few successful serial sitcoms on the broadcast networks in recent years, but none of them have shown a reliance upon knowing what has happened in previous episodes in the way that this series does. It makes me wonder how new viewers will be able to catch up when watching the series for the first time.

I sort of hope that this can be successful and that I am wrong about my prediction that this series will be quickly shelved, but it is hard to imagine any way in which this will realistically work on a major broadcast network. I could see this series running for a month or two, but if they can't sell a mainstream broadcast audience on this series and do so quickly, I can't see any way for it to succeed.

Final Numbers (out of 5 stars):

Watchability: 4/5
Funniness: 4/5
Overall: 4/5

Discuss the show after you watch it on Sunday, March 1, 2015 at 9:00PM ET/PT on our message board.

Related Links:

Fox.com Official Site

TV.com

epguides.com

Internet Movie Database

Wikipedia

The Last Man on Earth Photo Gallery

Preview:

2014-15 Week 23 TV Ratings (first four nights Mon-Thu):