Sitcoms Online Photo Galleries - Loop

The Loop aired from March 2006 until July 2007 on Fox.

Boyish, 24-year-old Sam ( Bret Harrison) was the youngest executive at the loony Chicago headquarters of Trans Alliance, a struggling international airline. Russ ( Philip Baker Hall), his sometimes blustery boss, had great confidence in Sam and gave him lots of responsibility-setting up a low-cost subsidiary, working on a major presentation to the Chinese Department of Transportation and doing a profit analysis to deal with budget problems. Sam's real problems at work were dealing with his cynical , overqualified secretary, Darcy ( Joy Osmanski), who had graduated fourth in her class at MIT, and avoiding the advances of Meryl ( Mimi Rogers), the horny older executive who had the hots for him. Sam shared an apartment with his slacker older brother, Sully ( Eric Christian Olsen), who was more interested in women than work; sexy Lizzy ( Sarah Mason) , who tended bar at the local hangout; and med student Piper ( Amanda Loncar), the college friend who had no idea Sam had a crush on her.

A Review from Variety

The Loop
(Series -- Fox, Wed. March 15, 9:30 p.m.)
By BRIAN LOWRY

Filmed in Los Angeles by Olive Bridge Entertainment and Wounded Poodle Prods. in association with 20th Century Fox Television. Executive producers, Will Gluck, Pam Brady; co-executive producer, Ira Ungerleider; producer, Victor Hsu; director, Betty Thomas; writers, Gluck, Brady;

Sam - Bret Harrison
Russ - Philip Baker Hall
Piper - Amanda Loncar
Lizzy - Sarah Mason
Sully - Eric Christian Olsen
Darcy - Joy Osmanski
Meryl - Mimi Rogers

Both loopy and virtually laugh-free, "The Loop" has been significantly revised but not much improved since Fox ordered it last spring, apparently hoping that high energy and a stunningly attractive cast can obscure its shortcomings. The show basically approximates that commercial where a young guy is working an office job and his dorky friends keep bugging him, as a generic twentysomething dude seeks to prove he can straddle adult obligations and youthful pastimes by partying all night and working all day. Sorry, but been there, drank that.
Little in this Chicago-set series (hence the name) feels fresh, including the protagonist's long-standing crush on his gorgeous roommate, his slacker brother and a climactic moment that actually repeats in the two half-hours previewed. In each episode, Sam (Bret Harrison) insists he must get some sleep before going on a drunken bender, and then has to impress his crusty boss (Philip Baker Hall) while making up an idea on the fly.

"Fly" is the operative word, since Sam is the youngest exec at a major airline, where his over-the-top co-workers include the aforementioned CEO, a frustrated MIT grad functioning as his assistant (Joy Osmanski) and a predatory female colleague, Meryl (Mimi Rogers), who keeps coming on to him. Actually, if Sam were a normal guy instead of a sitcom one, he'd jump Meryl on the nearest desk between the opening credits and first commercial break.

Ah, but Sam only has eyes for Piper (Amanda Loncar), who is tethered to a long-distance boyfriend. Sam and Piper live with Sam's older brother (Eric Christian Olsen) and a fourth roommate, Lizzy (Sarah Mason), a bartender who looks like she just stumbled in out of a beer commercial.

Hall yields a few absurd moments with his cantankerous ramblings, enthusing about crushing his employees' spirits and throwing a fit whenever Sam receives personal calls. Olsen, meanwhile, is just the latest half-baked Peter Pan leading a buddy (or here, younger sibling) astray, though the role seems to have been downplayed since its earlier incarnation.

Foremost, "The Loop" feels like a pallid alter ego of Fox's much more promising "Free Ride," which bowed earlier this month. Even the visual gimmickry, which includes little onscreen flashcards saying things like "So into her," has all the flavor of airline peanuts.

Of course, Fox is launching "The Loop" after "American Idol," meaning plenty of folks in the right demos will be delivered to its gates before the show takes up residence Thursdays. Yet despite that connection, it's going to require considerable good fortune, and perhaps a new flight plan, to keep this bird airborne.

A Review from USA TODAY

'The Loop': Bring an airsick bag
By Robert Bianco,
USA TODAY

Fasten your seat belts — it's going to be a bumpy flight.

On the bright side, it's not likely to be a long one.

Set in a struggling airline, which at least counts as a novel sitcom workplace, The Loop may be the first sitcom to induce motion sickness. Seldom has a series expended more energy with less entertaining results.

Arriving Wednesday as the latest Fox show to get an Idol boost, The Loop seems to have been inspired in equal parts by Fox's Free Ride and by a cellphone commercial. Like the ad, the hero is a twentysomething executive, Sam (Bret Harrison), the only gainfully employed member of his crowd.

And as in Free Ride, Sam has a crush on an old friend, Piper (Amanda Loncar), and is put-upon by a slacker best friend, Sully (Eric Christian Olsen) — who also happens to be his brother.

Just to make things more confusing, the actors in the two shows even bear a casual resemblance to each other. It's as if Fox went to the sitcom knockoff outlet store, had trouble deciding between two it sort of liked, and walked out with both. And now, no doubt, it is suffering from buyer's remorse on both counts.

For those trying to keep track, there are two main differences. The Loop is scripted, and Free Ride is improvised. And Loop boasts two amusing if exaggerated performances by the two grown-up pros in the supporting cast: Philip Baker Hall and Mimi Rogers as Sam's airline bosses.

Unfortunately, their screen time is limited, and even when they are on screen, the show's method of attacking each joke with a jackhammer quickly grows wearisome. The blame probably goes more to the script and the direction than to the cast (though Olsen would be wise to bring it down a notch or so). But from a viewer's standpoint, the end result is the same: a sitcom flight you'd be well advised to miss.

Maybe you'd better not fasten those belts after all. They'll just slow your escape.

An Article from Entertainment Weekly

30-Second Pitch
30-Second Pitch
We gave Will Gluck, co-creator of ''The Loop,'' exactly half a minute to plead a case for his on-the-bubble show -- here's what happened

By Dan Snierson

It happens almost every year. Fox airs a clever, offbeat comedy that draws weak ratings and winds up perched on the lip of cancellation. The latest exhibit: The Loop, a single-camera comedy about an overscheduled dude, Sam, who works at an airline and invents swears like ''crap jackers.'' But instead of us begging the network to renew the show for next season, we decided to grant Loop co-creator Will Gluck exactly 30 seconds in a public forum to plead his own case.

WILL GLUCK: ''This is the funniest show about a 23-year-old guy who works as an executive at an airline since 7th Heaven — by the way, we're going to rename the show 7th Heaven and do a special episode where Sam falls in a well and Jesus saves him with a magic rope. We also promise to buy every Fox executive a pony in the color of their choice. I will give every female executive a lap dance, my co-creator, Pam Brady, will give every male executive a lap dance — some of them the other way around — and more importantly, if the show gets picked up for a second year, we promise to bring the troops home. God bless. Lap dance!''

[Ed. note: Gluck finished in only 26 seconds, so we allowed him to continue for four more seconds.]

GLUCK: ''Ummm... I'm kidding about the lap dance.''

For a Website dedicated to Bret Harrison go to http://bret.fan-sites.org/

To listen to the theme song of The Loop go to http://www.televisiontunes.com/Loop_(The).html