September 25, 2003
Night of 1000 Gaffes
Tonight was the kind of night that reminds me of why I stopped watching Friends. Overplayed jokes (think Monica's hair), relationships with about as much sexual tension as George and Barbara Bush's marriage, and a complacency that doesn't lend itself to the bizarre situations in the script sucked all of the enjoyment out of the show. Matthew Perry still does great comedic work, but Courtney Cox should have stuck to being the straight man in the group. Normally vibrant Lisa Kudrow looked tired for most of the episode and that made me want a nap...
Will & Grace fared much better. Megan Mullally and Sean Hayes can always coax a laugh out of me when they get together on the screen. I'll admit that I was never a regular Will & Grace viewer. I watched when I had time in the early years, but not recently. I just have one question for the regular viewers... at what point did Grace become a complete airhead? Because she was a little flightly in the beginning, but there were definite signs of life on Planet Grace that seem to have become extinct lately.
Coupling was neither as shocking as some people feared, nor as enticing as I had hoped. Rent the original British version to see something a litttle more inspired (like a scary psychotic, yet strangely alluring Jane) and more clearly defined characters. Not to mention six more minutes of dialogue. It's a good thing we Americans get a full 8 minutes of commercials, no?
Finally, ER was a solid hour of good television. Over the years, every time a main character left that show, I thought, "That's it. ER is done for. It'll never be as good." Yet I find myself not really missing Anthony Edwards, Julianna Margulies, Eriq La Salle, and George Clooney — four people I didn't think the show could do without. Maura Tierney has really stepped up to the plate, bringing an intelligent complexity and vulnerable likeability to Abby that works well with Noah Wyle's John Carter. She's easily one of my favorite characters and they make a well-matched couple. The "tormented Carter" plotline is getting a little tired, but it'll work for another season or two before people get sick of it. And Paul McCrane tips the scales from love to hate and back again on Dr. Romano's incendiary character — really fun stuff!
Comments
I missed Coupling, but once I heard it was supposed to be based on the British version, I think I tuned out anyway. We've rarely taken something from elsewhere and made it better. More financially successful, maybe (think "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?"), but not better. The British show is consistently a riot. I can't see the American version being anything but a clone of Friends (which, to be fair, Coupling might have been a clone of that).