Happy Endings (TV series)

Happy Endings
Genre	Sitcom
Created by	David Caspe
Starring	Eliza Coupe Elisha Cuthbert Zachary Knighton Adam Pally Damon Wayans, Jr. Casey Wilson
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	22 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	David Caspe Jamie Tarses Jonathan Groff Anthony Russo Joe Russo
Camera setup	single-camera
Running time	22 minutes
Production company(s)	FanFare Productions ABC Studios
Distributor	Sony Pictures Television
Broadcast
Original channel	ABC
Original run	April 13, 2011 (2011-04-13) – present
External links
Website

Happy Endings is an American television series for the ABC network. The single-camera ensemble comedy premiered on April 13, 2011, as a midseason replacement,^[1] with a one-hour premiere of two back-to-back episodes starting at 9:30 pm ET/PT. In the weeks that followed, the show continued to air back-to-back episodes that began airing at 10:00 pm ET/PT.^[2]

On May 13, 2011, the show was renewed for a second season,^[3] which premiered on September 28, 2011. On October 13, 2011, the show received an additional episode order of 6 scripts from ABC, citing improved ratings for the series ^[4][4] On November 3, 2011, ABC picked up the series for a full 22-episode second season.^[5]

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Episodes 4 Production 4.1 Edits 5 Release 5.1 Broadcast 5.2 Online 5.3 DVD 6 Reception 6.1 Ratings 6.2 International broadcast 7 References 8 External links

Plot

The series revolves around the lives of a group of friends, living in Chicago, whose group is rocked when the couple that brought them together, Alex and Dave, break up. This leaves the rest of the group (Max, Brad, Jane, and Penny) in an awkward position of either trying to stay together as friends or having to choose sides.

Alex and Dave decide to stay friends, but there are many more complications down the road.^[6]

Cast

• Eliza Coupe as Jane Kerkovich-Williams – Alex's control freak older sister. She is married to Brad and wanted to start a family and live a "perfect suburban life", prior to being freaked out over Alex and Dave's break-up. She is very competitive and always likes to be in charge of everything. Has a tendency to turn to alcohol when she's stressed out.
• Elisha Cuthbert as Alex Kerkovich – Dave's ex-fiancée who leaves him at the altar on the day of their wedding. Alex still has some regret about leaving Dave at their wedding and feels guilty about it. She enjoys going on double dates and "girls nights out" with best friend Penny. She runs her own women's clothing boutique called Xela ("Alex" backwards) in downtown Chicago. In season two, she moves in with Penny after accidentally ruining her apartment with smoke damage.
• Zachary Knighton as Dave Rose – Newly single after being left by his ex-fiancée Alex on the day of their wedding. Still trying to figure his life out after the wedding, Dave followed his dreams of quitting his office job and is now self-employed with his steak sandwich food truck business. After his break-up with Alex, he now lives on Max's couch.
• Adam Pally as Max Blum – Best friends with Dave and Brad since college. He is sarcastic and enjoys sitting around his apartment playing video games. He is openly gay, but only recently came out to his parents, after years of having Penny pose as his girlfriend. Max is single and unemployed; he now shares his apartment with newly single Dave. Max is a minister of a non-denominational Christian church (though he himself is Jewish) licensed to officiate weddings, although he technically wasn't licensed when he did Brad and Jane's wedding. In season two, Max attempts to start a job as a limo driver.
• Damon Wayans, Jr. as Brad Williams – Jane's husband who does whatever she says, despite not usually being crazy about her ideas. He works for a big Chicago investment firm and is best friends with Dave and Max. Brad and Jane were first introduced to each other by Dave when they were in college.
• Casey Wilson as Penny Hartz – the group's desperate, single friend who constantly worries that she'll never find the right guy. She has known Dave, Alex and Jane since high school. Max has been her "gay BFF" since college, though they briefly dated before she realized he was gay. She works at a public relations firm and prides herself on being the most fashionable person in her office.

Episodes

Season		Episodes	Originally aired		DVD release date
			Season premiere	Season finale	Region 1	Region 2	Region 4
	1	13	April 13, 2011 (2011-04-13)	August 24, 2011 (2011-08-24)	September 20, 2011 (2011-09-20)[7]	N/A	N/A
	2	22[8]	September 28, 2011 (2011-09-28)	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

Production

On January 19, 2010, ABC green-lit the pilot episode, which was written by David Caspe and directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo.^[9] The show is from production companies Sony Pictures Television, ABC Studios, and executive producer Jamie Tarses' FanFare Productions. Executive producers are Jamie Tarses, Jonathan Groff and The Russo Brothers.

Casting announcements began in February 2010, with Damon Wayans, Jr. first cast as Brad, Jane's husband who does whatever she says.^[10] Next to join the series was Casey Wilson as Penny, the group's desperate and single friend.^[11] Eliza Coupe and Adam Pally shortly joined that cast, with Coupe playing Jane, Alex's control freak sister who is married to Brad, and Pally playing Max, Dave's close friend and roommate.^[12][13] Elisha Cuthbert later joined the cast as Alex, Dave's ex-fiancé who leaves him at the altar.^[14] Zachary Knighton was last actor to be cast as the newly single Dave.^[15]

The pilot was ordered to series on May 13, 2010, as a mid-season entry in the 2010–11 United States network television schedule.^[16]

Edits

In the sixth episode of the season, "Of Mice and Jazz-Kwon-Do", Dave refers to the mouse he is trying to catch as "his bin Laden" and then went on to joke that he was referring to "Jessica bin Laden, a super hot Arab girl I went to college with. She was the one that got away". The episode, which was taped prior to the death of Osama bin Laden,^[17] aired with ABC muting the final line, and removing the line entirely from online streams of the episode. The episode aired with the line unmuted on Citytv in Canada.^[18]

The ninth episode, "You've Got Male", originally included a kiss between Max and Ian and was seen among several promotional images released prior to the episode airing. The kiss was ultimately removed from the episode. Before the episode aired, David Caspe explained that the kiss was cut purely as a creative decision and that there had been no pressure from the network to remove any gay content.^[19]

Release

Broadcast

The first season of the show premiered on ABC on April 13, 2011, and concluded on May 25. The season aired mostly out of the intended broadcast order to make the initial episodes more "stand alone" in an effort to get more people invested in the show.^[20] As a result, the episodes "Bo Fight" and "Barefoot Pedaler", which were intended to air as the second and third episodes^[21] as they show the events in the weeks after Alex and Dave's wedding, aired as episodes 10 and 11. It was later revealed that the decision to air the episodes out-of-order was ultimately made by ABC,^[22] and that the episodes will appear in the intended order on the DVD release.^[23]

The episode "Why Can't You Read Me?" was initially left unaired, however the episode later aired on August 24, 2011.

On September 16, 2011, ABC Family aired a 6-hour Happy Endings marathon. The episodes were aired in their intended production order, with the exception of "Why Can't You Read Me?" which was not included.^[24]

Online

Full episodes of the series are available for streaming on both ABC.com^[25] and Hulu^[26] and are also available to purchase on iTunes.^[27]

DVD

On September 20, 2011, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the first season on Region 1 DVD. Special features include outtakes, a Banana Republic-Style Preview: The Guys of Happy Endings, Mike Relm Remix, "I'm in a Great Place Right Now", The Wedding Prep Scene, Mark Douglas Parody Theme Song, and a Mark Douglas Interview with Adam Pally and Casey Wilson.^[28]

Reception

The series was initially criticized, being negatively compared to several similar "relationship sitcoms" that had premiered earlier in the season - Perfect Couples, Mad Love, Traffic Light and Friends with Benefits.^[29][30][31] The series also drew comparisons from the hit 1990s sitcom Friends.^{[32][33][34][35][36]} However, as the season progressed, the show began to receive praise from critics - with some admitting that it had grown on them and that it had improved since the pilot.^[37][38] Happy Endings was the second "relationship sitcom" of the season that was renewed for a second season, second to CBS' Mike & Molly.

The second season of Happy Endings landed on multiple "Best of Year" lists: The New York Magazine^[39], the A.V. Club^[40], Hulu^[41], the Associated Press^[42], the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette^[43], and Yahoo!^[44] TV all included the series in lists of the top television programs of 2011.

Ratings

The third episode of the second season achieved a season high of 7.29 million viewers and a 3.1 adults 18-49 rating.^[45] Its fifth, Halloween themed episode, of the second season achieved a series high of 8.33 million viewers and a 3.5 adults 18-49 rating.^[46]

Season	Timeslot	Originally aired		TV Season	Viewers (in millions)	Rank	18-49 Nielsen ratings rank	18-49 Nielsen Rank
		Season premiere	Season finale
1	Wednesday 9:31PM (April 13, 2011) Wednesday 10:00PM (April 13, 2011 - May 18, 2011)	April 13, 2011	May 25, 2011	2011	5.043[47]	105th[47]	2.1/5[47]	75th[47]
	Wednesday 10:30PM (April 20, 2011, May 5, 2011 - May 25, 2011)				3.632[47]	122nd[47]	1.5/4[47]	103rd[47]
2	Wednesday 9:30PM	September 28, 2011	TBA	2011-2012	TBA	TBA	3.9/9 [Note 1][48]	28th[Note 1][48]

International broadcast

Country / Region	Channel	Premiere
Canada	Citytv	April 13, 2011
India	Zee Cafe	Summer 2011
Greece	FOX Life	Fall 2011
New Zealand	TV2[50]	July 27, 2011[51]
Australia	Seven Network	November 22, 2011
Latin America	Sony Entertainment Television[52]	August 22, 2011[52]
Norway	TV Norge[53]	August 23, 2011[53]
Belgium	PRIME	September 3, 2011
UK	E4[54]	September 8, 2011[55]
Poland	Comedy Central Polska	November 28, 2011
Serbia	FOX Life Serbia	September 8, 2011
Estonia	Fox Life	October 3, 2011
Portugal	Fox Life	October 2, 2011
Germany	Comedy Central Germany	December 2011[56]

References

External links

• Official website
• Happy Endings (TV series) on Twitter
• Happy Endings at the Internet Movie Database

ABC Network programming (current and upcoming) Primetime 101 Ways to Leave a Gameshow (since 2011) 20/20 (since 1978) America's Funniest Home Videos (aka AFV) (since 1989) The Bachelor (since 2002) Bachelor Pad (since 2010) The Bachelorette (since 2003) Body of Proof (since 2011) Castle (since 2009) Cougar Town (since 2009) Dancing with the Stars (since 2005) Desperate Housewives (since 2004) Expedition Impossible (since 2011) Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (since 2003) Grey's Anatomy (since 2005) Happy Endings (since 2011) Karaoke Battle USA (since 2011) Last Man Standing (since 2011) The Middle (since 2009) Modern Family (since 2009) Once Upon a Time (since 2011) Pan Am (since 2011) Primetime (since 1989) Private Practice (since 2007) Revenge (since 2011) Rookie Blue (since 2010) Saturday Night College Football Secret Millionaire (since 2011) Suburgatory (since 2011) Take the Money and Run (since 2011) Wipeout (since 2008) Work It (since 2012) Daytime The Chew (since 2011) General Hospital (since 1963) Good Morning America (since 1975) Million Dollar Mind Game (since 2011) One Life to Live (since 1968) The View (since 1997) Late night Jimmy Kimmel Live! (since 2003) Nightline (since 1979) News 20/20 (since 1978) ABC World News (since 1953) America This Morning (since 1982) Good Morning America (since 1975) Nightline (since 1979) Primetime (since 1989) This Week (since 1981) World News Now (since 1992) Sports ESPN College Football on ABC/Saturday Night Football ESPN College Basketball on ABC Indianapolis 500 NASCAR on ABC/ESPN NBA on ABC WNBA on ESPN Saturday morning Born to Explore with Richard Wiese Culture Click with Nzinga Blake Jack Hanna's Wild Countdown Ocean Mysteries with Jeff Corwin Online Squeegees (since 2008) Voicemail (since 2007) Upcoming Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 GCB Missing The River Scandal ABC (current) · AMC · CBS (current) · CW · E! · Fox · FX · HBO · OWN · NBC (current) · Showtime · Starz · TBS · TNT · USA