Tracey Takes On...

I would like to defend Tracey Ullman from a brutally uninformed commentator who slammed Tracey and her show for reinforcing negative stereotypes. I must say, YOU HAVE MISSED THE POINT! Tracey Ullman is a brilliantly talented performer. However, why is that a black comedian can get on stage, slam whites, Jews, Asians, women and police and use the "F" word ad nauseum and we praise them for being masters! Talk about your double-edge sword!

This series is destined to become a classic. It is outstanding in every way. The writing has intelligence and true insight. It's loaded with witty references to the American Pop Culture wasteland and to the broken dreams at the bottom of the Hollywood foodchain. The performances, especially Ullman's, are flawless. An exceptional supporting cast. Only HBO and British television can produce comedy of this calibre.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

This is one of the funniest shows on TV!! Tracey Ulmann plays a variety of different characters and each week it's given a different theme such a Tracey takes on... fashion, death, age, music, change ...etc... My favourite character is Linda Granger but I love them all. Tracey is amazingly transformed into each character - sometimes you have to check the credits/ Tracey Takes On home page to see if it actually was her - eg. the NYC cab driver. Watch it whenever you get a chance - it's not the type of thing that you love the first time it visits but i becomes the type of thing that you love and pine for the next series!!! Unmissable.

American comedy series in which British-born Ullman `takes on' a particular subject each episode and parodies it through various characters.

Tracey Ullman is, without doubt, a very talented performer. Accomplished actress, singer (with some hit singles to her name), dancer, comedienne, television personality - she can do it all. Assuming countless guises in this show (all convincing and some completely unrecognizable), she proves that if you were casting a film, one only need cast Ullman for ninety percent of the characters.

Unfortunately, it's the material which lets her down. Lame jokes, unfunny skits and poor writing sink what could have been a terrific series. Understandably, it's geared for an American audience, with in-jokes and a very American point of view - most of which fell completely flat in front of this Australian. In addition, her likeable characters seem to feature much less than the loud-mouthed, obnoxious ones.

Had Tracey enlisted some better writers, the show would've been a winner. Still, she performs admirably given what she's got and the show is tolerable, simply to watch Ullman's ability to portray so many characters believably.

"Tracey takes on" is a sketch comedy show on HBO, and each episode finds Tracey Ullman in a well-done disguise (ala Eddie Murphy in Coming To America), making fun of some minority group or whatever. It's a shame, however, that Tracey's talents lie not the least bit with comedy, for the show totally sucks, and sucks hard. Each "character" she portrays is a racist sterotype (the Black "homegirl" airport clerk, the Korean grocery store owner, the Jewish "yenta", the Arab taxi driver, etc...), and they aren't even clever parodies- she just kills the viewer slowly and painfully by acting how she thinks these people must act- black people speaking hardcore jive and the like. The skits themselves aren't the least bit funny, unless you maybe beat yourself senseless over the head with a dead skunk for about an hour or two, and THEN only maybe. What I want to know is who the hell's been signing the checks for this show? Do they really look at this mess and say, "Damn, that's quality entertainment! Next let's make a Cool As Ice series! Call Vanilla Ice, quick!" Anyway, in case you couldn't tell by my rant, Tracey Takes On is horrible and must be cancelled instantly, with all copies of previous episodes destroyed by a great big bonfire that I personally will dance around. Humanity will only prosper.