Hasn’t Nashville been through enough in the last year?
Netflix just dropped a trailer for their new Nashville-based sitcom, Country Comfort, and it may be the most cringe-worthy portrayal of Music City that I’ve ever seen – and that’s saying something.
I should have known it was going to be terrible when it opened with a shot of Tootsie’s (of course they would pick Tootsie’s) and then cut to an almost-empty barroom.
First of all, nobody from Nashville actually goes to Tootsie’s. Second, anybody who HAS been to Tootsie’s knows that it’s always packed shoulder-to-shoulder (well, at least pre-COVID) with bachelorette parties and tourists. The only time Tootsie’s is that empty is when…well, when it’s closed.
But it only gets worse from there.
The show stars Katherine McPhee as Bailey, an aspiring country singer (of course) who basically gets tricked into becoming a nanny for a “rugged cowboy” named Beau (played husband of LeAnn Rimes, Eddie Cibrian) and his five children.
If the plot sounds familiar, that’s because it’s basically the same as “The Nanny,” the 90’s sitcom starring Fran Drescher.
Except Fran Drescher’s voice isn’t anywhere near as annoying as the exaggerated “country” accents that all the characters seem to have. I mean, have the producers of this show even been to Nashville? We don’t all talk like that. In fact, there aren’t many people here that do. The accents in the show are a caricature of what people from Los Angeles or New York City think people in Nashville sound like – and they got it all wrong.
Ironically, the only character in the trailer that DOESN’T have an over-the-top ridiculous country accent is the cameo from LeAnn Rimes herself.
So what are the people of Nashville saying about the show? Well…about what you’d expect.
Some are comparing it to “The Sound of Music.” Which is pretty insulting to “The Sound of Music” if you ask me.
And some are pointing out that, if you have to use a laugh track, it’s probably not that funny.
But this one pretty much sums up the all the reactions that I’ve seen:
Yikes.
Country Comfort premieres on Netflix on March 19, so we have to wait a few weeks to see if it’s really as bad as it looks. But one comment on Reddit managed to find what may be the only silver lining to the show from what we’ve seen so far:
“At least this show won’t make people want to move here.”
