For a musical to work you need to have at least two main ingredients: Characters you can care about and really good (hopefully great) music.
Up Here fails on both accounts.
It's a real pity, because musicals are so seldom attempted for television and this one has a solid cast led by two talented performers. Unfortunately, they're let down by spectacularly bad writing, a dreary, repetitive plot, and characters who run the gamut from selfish and self-absorbed, to boorish, to cartoonish, to just plain dull.
The music is a miasma of bouncy, pop drivel and witless lyrics that are about as memorable as a seventy character password. I defy anyone to hum any of them from memory (the finale excluded, simply because it's repeated over the opening credits of Every. Single. Episode.).
There's only one really good number in the whole show; a Christmas ballad that marvelously lampoons Holiday love songs with poison pen accuracy. Unfortunately, the viewer would have to suffer through nearly the entire series to get to it and I can't say the effort would be worth the prize.
In all, Up Here is a disappointment. When it comes to getting my TV musical fix, I'm still waiting for season 2 of Schmigadoon.
Up Here fails on both accounts.
It's a real pity, because musicals are so seldom attempted for television and this one has a solid cast led by two talented performers. Unfortunately, they're let down by spectacularly bad writing, a dreary, repetitive plot, and characters who run the gamut from selfish and self-absorbed, to boorish, to cartoonish, to just plain dull.
The music is a miasma of bouncy, pop drivel and witless lyrics that are about as memorable as a seventy character password. I defy anyone to hum any of them from memory (the finale excluded, simply because it's repeated over the opening credits of Every. Single. Episode.).
There's only one really good number in the whole show; a Christmas ballad that marvelously lampoons Holiday love songs with poison pen accuracy. Unfortunately, the viewer would have to suffer through nearly the entire series to get to it and I can't say the effort would be worth the prize.
In all, Up Here is a disappointment. When it comes to getting my TV musical fix, I'm still waiting for season 2 of Schmigadoon.