Just to be clear, **it’s Guesst-starring: Id! **who doesn’t like Barney Fife. I cocked up the quotes in my post;)
Breaking Bad wasn’t a *great *show, it was the *greatest *show. I think Walt Jr. was well acted and added a lot to the show, too.
And, anybody who thinks Barney Fife wasn’t a hilarious character needs a funny bone transplant.
Don Knotts was a talented comic actor, but it was sad to see him mugging and hamming it up too much on Three’s Company. I blame the director for making him play the character too over-the-top.
This belongs on a “Rewatching Old Shows Letdowns” thread, but since you mention this I’ll push the boundaries: recently, I tuned into some episodes of “The Dick Van Dyke” show and was surprisingly underwhelmed.
Maybe it was just the luck of the draw. I have watched and enjoyed the show in syndication over the years, and had a “legacy” positive regard from my youth. Some characters and themes don’t age well, e.g. Sally Rogers’ “old maid” struggle to find romance. Buddy’s zingers to Mel Cooley are still funny, though.
But the episodes I caught seemed much dumber and unfunnier than I remembered, especially the interaction between Rob and Laura at home. One involved Rob freaking out because feared that he was losing his hair-- a premise so improbable that it was painful to watch the supposedly hilarious freak-outs. And Laura, famously whiny (“Oh, Rob!”) seemed far more dithery and inane than I’d previously noticed.
The ones I sampled didn’t seem as witty or charming as I remembered, to put it mildly. It must be “me”, but I still can’t account for the letdown.
I thought she was great in TNG’s Half a Life.
He was the setup guy. And a little funny too.
I’m giving The Dick Van Dyke Show’s Millie Helper a 5.8
That isn’t good.
She doesn’t improve as the series goes on.
Join the very, very, very large club. From reading various message boards, I think the character was almost universally disliked by L&O fans.
Fair enough, but: they’ve got setup guys. Once you’re looking for it, you can’t not see that Woody is putting a line out there for the sole purpose of letting Norm fire the perfect response; or that Diane is being serious for a moment just so Carla can follow it up with a snarky putdown; or that Coach is saying something that sounds sensible to give Sam a chance to amiably point out that, no, that’s not it; or that Frasier stops talking so Lilith can then dunk on him, and vice versa; and so on.
The show definitely got too on rhythm, I would agree. The jokes were different but the pace was the same.
Someone mentioned Carla… her character’s situation was actually a lot rougher than the others, being a single mom with kids. And they did include the kids in the plots periodically. But I think it was hard for the writers to promote a sympathetic POV because all of the other characters were in a different place. So they stayed with the bitter wisecracks, which made some sense given how Sam viewed both Diane/Rebecca and Carla, but didn’t do a lot to endear her to the audience.
Agreed. And could they have possibly given the character a dowdier and more insipid name?
Agreed. And could they have possibly given the character a dowdier and more insipid name?
Isn’t this format pretty much true of all traditional sitcoms?
I thought George’s mother was a terrible person, but a great character. I didn’t like his father much though.
I have been rewatching Voyager lately. Troi makes guest appearances in a couple of episodes, and it’s making me realize just how annoying I find her. In particular, her ridiculously cliched obsession with chocolate.
On TNG, it seemed like her character was mostly useful as a walking lie detector.
Both were of the “terrible person but great character” type IMO. Jerry Stiller was typecast and was the same way as Carrie’s father in ‘King of Queens’, worse yet for the fact he lived in the same house they did. How they didn’t tie, gag,and lock him in a closet to expire is beyond me.
Nah - Lucille Bluth and Gladys Peterson, um, RULE.
JB Smoove’s character on* Curb Your Enthusiasm* is terrible, and any scene he’s in is a painful black hole.
I agree about Troi.
This is just my own abiding guess or vibe, and I’ve never checked out the Trekkie commentariat to see if it’s been observed, analyzed, etc. by anyone else. But I think that when the TNG creators revived the ST franchise, they were so appalled or embarrassed by the “incorrect” sexuality in TOS, particularly Kirk as Captain Horn Dog, that they imposed a chilly, sanitized, “corrected” ethos that dominated the rest of the franchise.
TNG and the other post-TOS series still incorporated “sexy” elements: physically attractive cast members, romantic interludes, even unchecked passion; there are hints that hedonism and sexual gratification still exist in Federation culture. But to me, running away from the TOS Sixties “free love” indulgence made the Star Fleet officer corps cloyingly prim and puritanical.
Even beautiful, shapely actors like Marina Sirtis/Troi are presented as if they’re like 24th Century nuns in close-fitting habits; lust is confined to chocolate or, er, trombone-playing. To me, in general the actual romantic/sensual scenes are flat and unconvincing.
And since you mention those “Voyager” guest appearances, I just can’t take Dwight Schultz’s overwrought, fretful, socially awkward Reginald Barclay character. I just had to get that off my chest.