Pandemonium In Detroit

 I finally found a current sitcom worth watching, and it's "American Auto."

"American Auto," which airs on NBC, is set in the fictional Payne Motors, a Detroit automaker having to deal with the foibles of the American car business at large with an impetuous new CEO from the pharmaceutical industry - Katherine Hastings, played by "Saturday Night Live" alumnus" Ana Gasteyer - who knows next to nothing about cars.  Payne has a motley crew of characters trying to steer the company in the right direction with hilarious consequences.  They include the chief commercial officer, Sadie (played by Harriet Dyer) who needs to figure out how to market dubious products, the insecure engineer designer Cyrus (played by Michael Benjamin Washington), the company's British chief lawyer Elliot (played by Humphrey Ker) and - this might be my favorite character - Wesley Payne (played by Jon Barinholtz), the family scion of Payne Motors whose only qualification for being at the company is having lived through birth.  Among other characters.

The storylines involve a botched car rollout, dealing with sudden expensive recalls, labor relations, and the general stupidity of car companies who think they know their customers.  As a car buff, I probably find it more laugh-out-loud funny than many people would, especially the occasional references to the, uh, special relationship between Detroit and any car-testing magazine not named Consumer Reports.  Series creator Justin Spitzer says that "American Auto" is not based on any one company, but Katherine Hastings is clearly based on a hybrid of General Motors CEO Mary Barra (the first female CEO of a major American automaker) and former Ford CEO Jim Hackett, who came to Ford from the furniture business (and got rid of Ford's sedans and hatchbacks and put the company on a course to make mostly SUVs and pickup trucks for North America, a goal achieved just in time for Russia to cause gas prices to skyrocket with its invasion of Ukraine).  Wesley Payne is clearly based on the more useless members of the Ford family, of which I'm sure there are many, as well as any other VIPs in Fortune 500 companies who are VIPs because their names are on the product.  I find "American Auto" delightfully amusing for all of these reasons - and because of Ana Gasteyer.

The season finale of "American Auto" airs this Tuesday on NBC  at 8:00 PM Eastern, and I hope its not the series finale.  You can watch all of the episodes of "American Auto" on Peacock.