Post by Maximus on Apr 25, 2004 16:41:07 GMT -5
CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK
Not everybody loves 'Raymond'
Sitcom's repetition of '50s cliches has gotten old
By Matthew Gilbert, Globe Staff, 4/12/2004
"Everybody Loves Raymond" isn't the worst show on TV. That's about the highest praise I can muster for CBS's Monday sitcom hit, whose massive success continues to mystify me.
How can it be that inventive comedies get the guillotine every season, while this banal rehash of 1950s gender cliches continues to rival "Friends" as TV's most-watched sitcom? How can it be that "Everybody Loves Raymond" is not only a ratings blockbuster but a multiple Emmy winner, while the original likes of "Scrubs" scuffle for scraps of attention?
Tonight, like a dress rehearsal for the series's eventual end, CBS is preempting "Raymond" for a two-hour block of "Two and a Half Men." Don't count me among the disappointed.
Essentially, "Raymond" reduces the modern suburban family to a Neanderthal stereotype, like Ricky and Lucy Ricardo minus the love and affection. Ray and
Debra Barone (Ray Romano and Patricia Heaton), the central couple, are forever in the midst of war about their roles in the household. She's a shrew, always denying Ray the joy of his favorite activities, including golf and sex. Pent up about bearing the brunt of the housework and Ray's attachment to his mother, Debra has grown into a frustrated monster who jumps on Ray when he says the wrong thing. And he's always trying to get away with something, or to duck the crossfire between Debra and his family. Their marital dynamic often boils down to something like this: He wants sex, she withholds it to punish him for an insensitivity, she realizes what was bothering her, they make up, sort of.
Naturally, Debra has all the psychological insights in the Barone marriage; that's chick stuff, in the ethos of the show. And in response to her analyses, Ray rolls his eyes in the direction of the camera, as if to say "Pity the poor husband whose headstrong wife took a college psychology course." Most of the time, Ray walks around in a hangdog funk, bracing himself against his wife's needs or grudgingly going along with her to avoid retaliation. This is a typical exchange:
Ray: "Won't you just once think like a man?"
Debra: "I am. I'm completely disregarding your feelings."
Ray's aggressive and passive-aggressive mother, Marie (Doris Roberts), doesn't improve on the women of "Raymond." She and Debra are frequently relegated to the catfight plot, since women in the same household -- they're neighbors, but they're always in each other's homes -- never get along. It's written in the Book of Old Saws. Again and again, these two women go at it, while their men, Ray and his father, Frank (Peter Boyle), avoid getting caught up in female turf issues; the TV beckons. A typical exchange:
Debra: "A clean house is not the most important thing in the world."
Marie: "You know who says that? A messy person."
Some of the lines on "Raymond" do hit the mark, as they torque up the characters' pettiness, and Roberts makes Marie into a wondrous spectacle of dysfunction.
But still, the show does almost nothing to update the battle of the sexes, stubbornly dooming it to a time when it was a man's world and wives were trapped. The hackneyed plots hark back, way back -- Debra gets sick and her bumbling hubby must care for the kids; Ray invests in a go-kart track despite her disapproval; wacky things happen to Debra's engagement ring. It's like stumbling onto TV Land, a cable channel devoted to TV shows of yesteryear. And the idea that in-laws are endlessly hysterical might have hit its peak in the 1960s, with "The Mothers-In-Law," starring Kaye Ballard and Eve Arden.
Accepting the Emmy for best comedy last year, "Raymond" executive producer Phil Rosenthal proudly described his struggle to hold onto his show's old-fashioned orientation when CBS urged him to make it hip. "I want to thank all you hipsters in the audience for supporting us all these years," he said with heavy irony. "We do it for you." And it is true that producers like Rosenthal need to resist the entertainment industry's relentless push to capture the younger viewers who are so popular with advertisers. But at the same time, "adult" -- "Seinfeld," for example -- doesn't have to mean unyieldingly retro and bland.
As they recycle Barone behaviors, the "Raymond" episodes blur together. Most sitcoms repeat themselves; by definition, sitcom characters don't grow, which is part of what makes them funny. But the repetitions on "Raymond" are particularly irritating -- from Debra and Marie's duels to the sibling rivalry between Raymond and his giant older brother, Robert (Brad Garrett).
The show's character dynamics were timeworn eight years ago; now they're just annoying. Perhaps Romano is aware of the creative strains, since he has yet to commit to another season, saying only that the show will probably return, but with less than a full season of episodes.
The success of "Raymond" has inspired a number of throwback family comedies, such as the other Monday CBS comedies "Yes Dear" and "Still Standing," which bear the same mark of mediocrity. These shows aren't so much creative responses to "Raymond" as businesslike attempts to duplicate its demographic ratings success. They're far from the worst that TV has to offer; that distinction goes to reality shows such as "The Swan" and "I Want a Famous Face." But they're the kind of shows that resist breaking ground, that give viewers a safe retreat from new views of ourselves and our world.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com.
© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
It seems to me this guy has been troubled with the show ab initio.
Not everybody loves 'Raymond'
Sitcom's repetition of '50s cliches has gotten old
By Matthew Gilbert, Globe Staff, 4/12/2004
"Everybody Loves Raymond" isn't the worst show on TV. That's about the highest praise I can muster for CBS's Monday sitcom hit, whose massive success continues to mystify me.
How can it be that inventive comedies get the guillotine every season, while this banal rehash of 1950s gender cliches continues to rival "Friends" as TV's most-watched sitcom? How can it be that "Everybody Loves Raymond" is not only a ratings blockbuster but a multiple Emmy winner, while the original likes of "Scrubs" scuffle for scraps of attention?
Tonight, like a dress rehearsal for the series's eventual end, CBS is preempting "Raymond" for a two-hour block of "Two and a Half Men." Don't count me among the disappointed.
Essentially, "Raymond" reduces the modern suburban family to a Neanderthal stereotype, like Ricky and Lucy Ricardo minus the love and affection. Ray and
Debra Barone (Ray Romano and Patricia Heaton), the central couple, are forever in the midst of war about their roles in the household. She's a shrew, always denying Ray the joy of his favorite activities, including golf and sex. Pent up about bearing the brunt of the housework and Ray's attachment to his mother, Debra has grown into a frustrated monster who jumps on Ray when he says the wrong thing. And he's always trying to get away with something, or to duck the crossfire between Debra and his family. Their marital dynamic often boils down to something like this: He wants sex, she withholds it to punish him for an insensitivity, she realizes what was bothering her, they make up, sort of.
Naturally, Debra has all the psychological insights in the Barone marriage; that's chick stuff, in the ethos of the show. And in response to her analyses, Ray rolls his eyes in the direction of the camera, as if to say "Pity the poor husband whose headstrong wife took a college psychology course." Most of the time, Ray walks around in a hangdog funk, bracing himself against his wife's needs or grudgingly going along with her to avoid retaliation. This is a typical exchange:
Ray: "Won't you just once think like a man?"
Debra: "I am. I'm completely disregarding your feelings."
Ray's aggressive and passive-aggressive mother, Marie (Doris Roberts), doesn't improve on the women of "Raymond." She and Debra are frequently relegated to the catfight plot, since women in the same household -- they're neighbors, but they're always in each other's homes -- never get along. It's written in the Book of Old Saws. Again and again, these two women go at it, while their men, Ray and his father, Frank (Peter Boyle), avoid getting caught up in female turf issues; the TV beckons. A typical exchange:
Debra: "A clean house is not the most important thing in the world."
Marie: "You know who says that? A messy person."
Some of the lines on "Raymond" do hit the mark, as they torque up the characters' pettiness, and Roberts makes Marie into a wondrous spectacle of dysfunction.
But still, the show does almost nothing to update the battle of the sexes, stubbornly dooming it to a time when it was a man's world and wives were trapped. The hackneyed plots hark back, way back -- Debra gets sick and her bumbling hubby must care for the kids; Ray invests in a go-kart track despite her disapproval; wacky things happen to Debra's engagement ring. It's like stumbling onto TV Land, a cable channel devoted to TV shows of yesteryear. And the idea that in-laws are endlessly hysterical might have hit its peak in the 1960s, with "The Mothers-In-Law," starring Kaye Ballard and Eve Arden.
Accepting the Emmy for best comedy last year, "Raymond" executive producer Phil Rosenthal proudly described his struggle to hold onto his show's old-fashioned orientation when CBS urged him to make it hip. "I want to thank all you hipsters in the audience for supporting us all these years," he said with heavy irony. "We do it for you." And it is true that producers like Rosenthal need to resist the entertainment industry's relentless push to capture the younger viewers who are so popular with advertisers. But at the same time, "adult" -- "Seinfeld," for example -- doesn't have to mean unyieldingly retro and bland.
As they recycle Barone behaviors, the "Raymond" episodes blur together. Most sitcoms repeat themselves; by definition, sitcom characters don't grow, which is part of what makes them funny. But the repetitions on "Raymond" are particularly irritating -- from Debra and Marie's duels to the sibling rivalry between Raymond and his giant older brother, Robert (Brad Garrett).
The show's character dynamics were timeworn eight years ago; now they're just annoying. Perhaps Romano is aware of the creative strains, since he has yet to commit to another season, saying only that the show will probably return, but with less than a full season of episodes.
The success of "Raymond" has inspired a number of throwback family comedies, such as the other Monday CBS comedies "Yes Dear" and "Still Standing," which bear the same mark of mediocrity. These shows aren't so much creative responses to "Raymond" as businesslike attempts to duplicate its demographic ratings success. They're far from the worst that TV has to offer; that distinction goes to reality shows such as "The Swan" and "I Want a Famous Face." But they're the kind of shows that resist breaking ground, that give viewers a safe retreat from new views of ourselves and our world.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com.
© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
It seems to me this guy has been troubled with the show ab initio.
