Some television shows get buried. “Friends With Benefits” was shot in the back of the head, driven to the Meadowlands and dumped in a ditch.

Two years after it was first announced, “Benefits” surfaced last week on NBC — in August, on a Friday night, on the heels of a feature film with the same title. As if that weren’t bad enough, the network also declined to screen the show in advance for critics, making it less likely to draw attention than a private eye’s notebook in a Scotland Yard evidence locker. A prime-time series has not been treated this way since, oh, two months ago, when NBC did something similar to “Love Bites.”

All of which may be evidence that the new ownership at NBC Universal has some taste. The “Benefits” back story is more interesting than the actual show, which, based on the two episodes shown on Friday, is an attempt at a wised-up 21st-century “Friends” with all the emotion and most of the laughs scoured out.

Focusing on a five-member ensemble — three bumbling, grating men and the two attractive, relentlessly energetic, sexually pliable women, who mysteriously choose to hang out and hook up with them — it combines a single-camera, mildly absurdist style and raunchy humor with stock sitcom situations. It’s the kind of show in which a lamely suggestive joke about a vajazzled woman — one with a bejeweled genital area — giving birth (“The kid came out looking like a disco ball!”) is followed by reaction shots of everyone in the scene laughing. That’s what you do when you’re too cool for a laugh track but too insecure to let the jokes speak for themselves.

That it opens with the two main characters, Ben (Ryan Hansen) and Sara (Danneel Ackles), having sex could be seen as a comment on “Friends,” its more innocent predecessor, which took 39 episodes to get Ross and Rachel together. It could also be seen as prudent, since “Friends With Benefits” isn’t likely to have that much time.

Circumstances have worked against it from the start. Set up at ABC in 2009, with a script by Michael H. Weber and Scott Neustadter of “(500) Days of Summer,” it moved to NBC a few months before the announcement of the complex Comcast-NBC Universal merger. Shortly after it was listed as part of NBC’s 2010-11 season, one of its executive producers, David Nevins, was named entertainment president of Showtime. All three of the male roles were recast, and Mr. Hansen and Ms. Ackles took roles in new pilots this spring.

“Friends With Benefits” has managed one distinction, though. Originally announced as one of NBC’s five new comedies for the current season, it’s the last one standing: with a month to go in the season, “Outsourced,” “Perfect Couples,” “The Paul Reiser Show” and “Love Bites” have all been shown and canceled. Sometimes being forgotten has its benefits.

FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS

NBC, Friday nights at 8 and 8:30, Eastern and Pacific times; 7 and 7:30, Central time.

Produced by Big Kid Pictures, the Ungerleider Company and Imagine Television in association with 20th Century Fox Television. Created by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber; executive producers, Mr. Neustadter and Mr. Weber (pilot only), Brian Grazer, Ira Ungerleider, David Dobkin and Jeff Kleeman.

WITH: Ryan Hansen (Ben Lewis), Danneel Ackles (Sara Maxwell), Zach Cregger (Aaron Greenway), Andre Holland (Julian Fitzgerald) and Jessica Lucas (Riley Elliott).

Source: New York Times

NBC’s romantic comedy series “Friends With Benefits” hasn’t had the smoothest road to your television. It was slated for a mid-season premiere, but as enthusiasm for the show fizzled, it was pushed back repeatedly. Certainly there’s the issue of the series being overshadowed by the film of the same name, which is currently in theaters starring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis.

Then there’s the fact that the network hasn’t bothered to support the show — relegating it to a summer Friday night burn-off schedule, with minimal promotion, never bodes well. Still, despite a lack of confidence from the new regime at NBC, we’re charmed by the show. And if your Friday night date night is a bust, it’s just the remedy you need.

It certainly comes with a pedigree. The pilot was penned by “(500) Days of Summer” writers Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber and was directed by David Dobkin, of “Wedding Crashers” fame. Executive producers David Nevins and Brian Grazer have critical favorite “Arrested Development” on their impressive resumes.

The series stars “Veronica Mars” fan favorite Ryan Hansen as Ben and Danneel Ackles as Sara, two friends who are navigating the treacherous dating world while hooking up with each other on the side.

Ackles — formerly Harris — is best known from her role as the bitchy cheerleader (and master manipulator) Rachel on “One Tree Hill,” and as resident sexy stoner Vanessa in the “Harold & Kumar” movies.

When we interview her on the “Friends With Benefits” set, though, Ackles barely resembles the high-maintenance redhead we see on “One Tree Hill” reruns — and not just because Sara is a brunette. Ackles shuffles off set in sweats and slippers, digging into her lunch as the scene is reset on the next stage. “Is it rude to be eating something this spicy when I’m in the middle of a sex scene?” she wonders out loud.

Like the movie that shares its name, the sitcom has no shortage of love scenes. “Sara’s a really different character for me. She’s a doctor; she’s a pediatric resident. She’s sort of got everything in her life worked out, except for love,” Ackles says, then laughs. “There’s lots of sex, though. I guess she’s got that in common with the rest of [the characters I've played].”

More often than not, Sara is sleeping with Ben. Initially, it’s an unapologetically casual relationship. They’re platonic pals, drinking beer and sharing stories from the bad date trenches; they just occasionally use each other for a little relief. Their friendship is somewhat unlikely given how different their life goals are, though. While Sara is tirelessly searching for the love of her life, Ben is happy to play the field.

“Sara is smart and successful, but she goes to work every day and she sees all these babies and couples,” Ackles says, noting that this is her favorite of all the roles she’s played in her career. “She wants to have that happy ending; she wants a husband and a family. She’s looking for the love of her life for the long term, and she feels like she’s running out of time to have the life that she wants to have.”

It’s a sentiment that Ackles says she can relate to. “I’m from Louisiana. All of my girlfriends from high school and college got married really young. They’ve all got husbands and kids, the whole thing. I saw all of that and I ran like hell,” she admits. “I ran from that, completely. People at home had these expectations for what a woman is supposed to do in her twenties, and I had very different goals. I worked really hard. I was supporting myself, I had a career, I owned my own home. Then suddenly I looked around and I had all of my ducks in a row and I realized that I forgot something. You know, you have everything you want and nobody to share it with, and that’s kind of lonely. It was tough for me to admit that.”

She grins. “I’m good now, though,” she says. “Between this role and the guy, I’m literally the happiest I’ve ever been.” She’s referring, of course, to her marriage to “Supernatural” star Jensen Ackles — the couple celebrated their first wedding anniversary this May.

While Ackles may have met her match, her character’s search for companionship is a comedy of errors. “She’s so neurotic and just obsessed with being charming,” she says of Sara. “She goes out on these insane dates and she thinks she’s Katherine Heigl, doing this romantic comedy thing. She finds these guys — good looking guys with good jobs. They seem really reliable, and then they’re complete freaks.”

At the end of these terrible nights, though, Ben is always just a phone call away. “I think [the audience] is going to want them together in the end,” Ackles says. “Don’t get me wrong – he’s terrible for her. On paper, they should never work, but you still want them to.”

Tune in Friday nights at 8 p.m. EST for back-to-back “Friends With Benefits” episodes.

Source: Zap 2 It

It’s hard not to be at least curious about a show called Friends with Benefits. After all, who among us hasn’t secretly wanted to sleep with an attractive friend and, bonus, have no strings attached? I see some hands raised out there.

That little revelation bring us to the new NBC show called, wait for it, Friends with Benefits — which has nothing to do with the recent movie of the same name, by the way. This show, which features Veronica Mars and Party Down alumni Ryan Hansen along with Danneel Ackles, Zach Cregger, Andre Holland and Jessica Lucas, is about a group of singles in their twenties and their romantic ups and downs as they try to maneuver the dating world. I know, I know.

Anyway, to help spark your interest, we’ve got some previews for the how for you right now. In them you get to meet Sara and Ryan, two close friends looking for love. Ben may be picky, but at the end of his date, he might be justified while Sara starts to worry about her future.

Friends with Benefits premieres tomorrow night (Friday) at 8/7C on NBC.

Source: NBC