NBC made waves earlier this year with the announcement that its fall programming lineup would largely abandon comedy save for two hold-outs leading into Friday nights. On Wednesday, what fans remain of the network’s ever-slimming funny offerings had the chance to see a sneak peek of that double-billing, as NBC screened the season openers of both Undateable and Truth Be Told to open PaleyFest’s week of fall TV previews.

With only two half-hour slots available, NBC has chosen well with its comedies in that each checks off a different set of items on the list of factors that drive live tune-in. Truth Be Told has an ethnically diverse cast and hinges on the fraught dynamics of multiracial families and friendships. Its humor is also startlingly risqué for a Big Four network, with the debut episode hurtling gamely through such topics as porn, the n-word, and a husband’s imagined infidelity with his daughter’s hot babysitter.

Meanwhile, Undateable is going for shock and awe not with the quality of its content but via technical bravado, taping every episode live for its third season. There’s little reason to do this other than the fact that “network television is challenged,” Undateable executive producer Bill Lawrence told the PaleyFest crowd, “and we’re trying to get people to watch the night of.”

Still, Lawrence insisted the ploy is “more than just a stunt… we care about the storytelling.”

The season premiere screening that preceded his comment did not necessarily prove that noble notion, consisting of a barely connected non-sequitur jokes interwoven with a seemingly endless stream of guest stars (including Scandal star Scott Foley and singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran). But Undateable has never been a critical darling, and the spontaneity of its live-taped season opener turns its perceived sloppiness into a strength, with Chris D’Elia in particular flourishing in an environment where he has the ability to go off the cuff seemingly at will. The results definitely lacked the polish we’ve come to expect from broadcast television, but it was kind of refreshing in its shagginess, and mostly unpredictable.

“Even if there’s an epic disaster, which there will be at least once, that’s still more entertaining than most of what’s on TV,” said Adam Sztykiel, the show’s other executive producer.

If there is a theme connecting the two comedies, it’s authenticity. At its core, Undateable is a very traditional multi-cam sitcom, where the conveyor belt of jokes and incessant canned laughter upstages any attempts at genuine feeling—but the live element also added an unexpected dimension of realness as the actors struggled with lines, fought off grins and stumbled through blocking. At the other end of the spectrum, Truth Be Told gets at its authentic self through more traditional means – the writing.

“I wanted to do it because my friends can talk about anything,” said the show’s creator DJ Nash, who based the series on his own life as a Jewish male with a Korean wife and an African-American best friend. “I have a great love of and desire for diversity, but it’s not about that, it’s about storytelling and friends.”

Nash said that “most showrunners are white dudes who staff with their friends,” but that he took pains to go a different route.

“DJ is passionate about making the writer’s room really diverse,” agreed the show’s executive producer Will Packer, “which helps to inform perspectives onscreen.” Even the look of Truth Be Told seems to be going for a more authentic feel in comedy. While the show has a laugh track and is clearly shot largely on soundstages, the quality of the footage resembles something more like a single-camera show shot out in the world. It’s a strange hybrid of stagy and sophisticated production values, and it will be interesting to see how having a foot in both realms plays with viewers. At the very least, scheduling it next to Undateable presents an intriguing pairing of polish and puerility.

“It could be a trainwreck,” said Lawrence, “but it’ll be a lot of fun.”

​Image courtesy of Rob Latour for Paley Center for Media.

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