Cover Story this

Fox tackles the loneliest

By Cassie Dresch TV Media

Hello? Hi? Anybody out there? Of course there is, otherwise life would be very, very, very lonely. Fox is taking a stab at the ultimate life of loneliness in the new half-hour comedy “The Last Man on Earth,” premiering Sunday, March 1.

The premise around “Last Man” is a simple one, albeit a little strange. An average, unassuming man is on the hunt for any signs of other living people after a virus takes out all of Earth’s population. His family is gone, his coworkers are gone, the president is gone. Everyone. Gone.

So what does he do? He travels the United States doing things he never would have been able to do otherwise — sing the national anthem at Dodger Stadium, smear gooey peanut butter all over a priceless piece of art ... then walk away with it, break things. The show, according to creator and star Will Forte (“Saturday Night Live,” “Nebraska,” 2013), sees him get into a lot of really silly shenanigans.

“It’s all just kind of stupid stuff that I go around and do,” he said in an interview with “Entertainment Weekly.” “That’s been one of the most fun parts of the job. About once a week I get to do something that seems like it’d be amazingly fun to do: shoot a flame thrower at a bunch of wigs, have a steamroller steamroll over a case of beer. Just dumb stuff like that, which pretty much is all it takes to make me happy.”

Flame throwers and steamrollers? Again, it’s a strange concept, but Fox is really behind the show. As if engaging in a multi-network bidding war for the rights to the show’s pilot wasn’t dedication enough to the idea, a few months after it won the bid, Fox completely skipped the pilot episode process and ordered a full season without airing a single episode.

“It’s been really fun and exciting because it’s such a weird concept and Fox has really embraced it, giving us their full support,” Forte

in ‘The Last Man on Earth’

said. “Trying to figure out how to tell a story with one person has been an incredible challenge, but also a really exciting challenge. Figuring out how to do it all has been really, really fun. We’re really proud of what has come out of it so far.”

Of course, you have to wonder with the show title worded the way it is: is Forte’s character, Phil Miller, the last man on

While Forte hasn’t really opened up about that — there are a lot of aspects of this show being kept under wraps — the answer to that question was let out of the bag at the Television Critics Association winter press tour in January. Kristen Schaal (“Bob’s Burgers,” “Toy Story 3,” 2010), whose casting announcement was made in December, joined the Q&A sessions with Forte and executive producers Phil Lord and Chris

Miller, lending credence to the idea that maybe she’s the last woman on Earth.

There are still some well-kept secrets among the crew, however. Mel Rodriguez (“Enlisted”), Cleopatra Coleman (“Wicked Science”), two-time Golden Globe nominee January Jones (“Mad Men”) and Oscar winner Mary Steenburgen (“Joan of Arcadia”) have all been announced as players in the freshman comedy, but Miller, Lord and Forte have all kept mum on the specifics of each character.

It may be kind of confusing, though, how a show that is billed as focusing on one single remaining man could have so many cast members. Miller explained the move at the TCA winter press tour.

“There are other actors in the show — and it’s kind of surprising how they fit into it, whether by flashbacks, dreams or in the present-day,” he said. “It’s not just Will [Forte] going around and smashing things for 13 episodes. TV shows are built on relationships, and it seemed kind of odd to make a show without any relationships.”

One problem with trying to film a TV show about the only man left on the planet is the fact that, logistically, it’s difficult to get rid of all the noise from all the humans that currently live on Earth. We make a ton of sound, even indirectly!

“Avoiding noise is incredibly hard,” Forte said at the TCA press tour. “Obviously, any time you’re shooting anything, the sound of an airplane, the sound of a train is really hard [to filter out].”

Whatever it is they’re doing seems to be working, at least for Fox execs. “The Last Man on Earth” may be a strange concept for a 13episode TV show, but the straightto-series order and growing list of cast members lends itself to the possibility that maybe — just maybe — this show is a diamond in the rough. Catch the series premiere of “The Last Man on Earth” when it airs Sunday, March 1, on Fox.

ACROSS

1 Country star Mr. Paisley

5 Giant’s cry of disgust!

8 Sort of sax

12 __ Cooper car

13 Wood sorrel

14 Crease

15 Hit for Dion: “The __”

17 Fabled racer 18 Mesh

19 “NewsNation with __ Hall”, weekdays on MSNBC

21 New CBS series starring Josh Duhamel as an FBI agent, “__ Creek”

24 Owl’s noise 25 ‘Press’ suffix

26 Easy Mac maker 30 Necklace part

33 Cartoonist, E.C. __ (Creator of Popeye) 34 South __, “M*A*S*H” setting 35 Suffix with ‘Lact’

36 300 in ancient Rome

38 William Conrad’s detective series of 1971 to 1976

41 “My Fair Lady” (1964) star Ms. Hepburn

44 Greek alphabet’s 17th letter

45 Blackthorn fruit

46 Supermodel Christie

51 Mend, as a broken bone

52 The 30th on calendars sometimes [acronym]

53 Speck

54 Without

55 Bakery offering

56 Hurried letters

DOWN

1 Snazzy car

2 River inlet

3 Ms. Romney

4 Billy Joel hit: “We __ Start the Fire”

5 Will __, SNL alum starring on 7 Down

6 Pepsi chiller

7 New FOX comedy, “The Last Man on __”

8 Shawn of FOX’s “The Following”

9 King of a

27 1957 Igor Stravinsky ballet

32 Tempo