Lead-writing rule: It’s good to open with conflict, right up top. Thus Edward Wyatt on Sarah Silverman:
Witness the might of “might”:
* IF there are people who only know Sarah Silverman from two movies, and
* IF those people, on watching The Aristocrats, concluded that this woman who appeared onscreen telling a joke, in the middle of a movie that consisted of dozens of veteran professional comedians telling a joke, was not a veteran professional comedian, and
* IF those people were then to hear that Silverman had landed a self-titled sitcom, and
* IF they were tired of the television industry’s constant practice of building name-branded sitcoms around unknown and unproven comedians
then…what? They “might bristle.” Unless Edward Wyatt of the New York Times–having executed the classic Straw Man Lead, aka the Flying Pig–is there to placate them:
At ease, bristly people, wherever you might be! Edward Wyatt is here to tell you that Sarah Silverman is actually a hard-working comedy veteran. And, um, also (with less fanfare) that her “holy grail” sitcom consists of a six-show run on cable–which puts her in a bit of a a different league from Bob Newhart.
