It would be awesome to be the last man on Earth, and the first of the two half-hour premiere episodes of “The Last Man on Earth” (8 p.m. Central Sundays on Fox) demonstrate why. Phil Miller (Will Forte) “bowls” by releasing a flatbed truck’s worth of bowling balls toward a bunch of fish tanks in a parking lot. He wipes his mouth on the Declaration of Independence. And his biggest project each day is seeing how high he can stack Jenga blocks.
But, as the high-concept comedy from Phil Lord and Chris Miller (both from “How I Met Your Mother” and the “Lego Movie” series) demonstrates, once you pass that awesome phase, you realize that being the last man on Earth is a lonely experience. The series shows a nice mix of pathos and comedy even as it goes through these early, obvious paces: Phil is inspired by “Cast Away” to create his own version of Wilson, but then we see he has painted faces on every type of sports ball in existence – and he knows their names by heart, like a kid knows the names of his stuffed animals.
It’s perhaps too early to say what kind of show “The Last Man on Earth” will be, but the second episode gives a hint. Phil meets the Last Woman on Earth, Carol (Kristen Schaal), who followed Phil’s spray-painted signs indicating that he is in Tucson, Ariz. This is two years after the virus killed the population of Earth (the show’s characters excepted), and Phil has proven accurate the Rita Rudner observation that men are bears with furniture. His mansion (procured post-apocalypse, of course) is littered with beer cans and other trash, and his unshaven face makes him resemble a grizzly. He uses a swimming pool as a toilet and – since there’s no running water – it’s safe to assume he doesn’t bathe regularly.
After a dream sequence where Phil imagines the Last Woman on Earth being a hottie who immediately falls in love with him, he sees that the actual LWOE is basically a female equivalent of him: A non-supermodel who most certainly does not have it all together (albeit in different ways). I think “LMOE” might become a show that observes human behavior, with the lens of a depopulated planet allowing us to see ourselves in all our stark ridiculousness.
Most tellingly is the fact that, even though they barely tolerate each other’s quirks, Phil and Carol decide to get married by the end of the second episode – Phil because he desires sex and Carol because she believes it’s their duty to repopulate the Earth. Carol’s oddities – in addition to not being aware that many, many more survivors will be needed to successfully start a healthy new population – include incorrectly correcting Phil’s grammar, pronouncing tomato “tom-ah-to” (I guess some people DO say it that way) and insisting they get married before they have sex. Even though they are the last two people on Earth.
I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to say the cast list will increase as the series goes forward; the Earth is a big place, and if two people found each other in two years’ time, it’s a safe bet that more people are out there, maybe even enough for the human race to have another go at it. “The Walking Dead” has a fairly wide canvas for showing ways society might collapse or recover after a massive plague, but “LMOE’s” canvas is even vaster. It should have room to be funny and poignant and comment on the absurdities of humanity and society. Unlike “The Walking Dead,” it almost certainly won’t investigate the deadly virus, and that’s OK.
Main image: Fox publicity photo