Married to the Kellys

I watched the first one because a friend was in the show. I watched the second episode, on the chance that the first one was not as good as it should have been. I taped the third one out of courtesy, and watched it at 5:30 AM cause the cat woke me up to get fed. Someone do me a favor and send the writers off to school. I really feel sorry for the actors, and hope they got their money up front.

This isn't ever going to be deemed as a classic sitcom. The show never was even released on DVD, which is saying something.

I've only seen episodes online, with rather varying picture quality, but this seems to be a perfectly fine, run of the mill sitcom, like so many others that were made at the time.

It's got a nice enough premise, it's well-written on the whole, and the cast seem game.

For whatever reason it just never really caught on enough to be deemed worthy of a second go around. I'm not sure that the lead was much of a sitcom leading man, so perhaps that was a factor.

Fine enough though.

This show actually required people to have a sense of humor. It really played well to those of us who can see the humor in some of the simplest of life's situations. It was not all about sex so I'm sure those who can think of nothing else in their life probably didn't like it. It had a cleanness to it, with its Kansas setting. "Married to the Kellys certainly appeals to those of us with a "dry" sense of humor as well. I thought the transplanting of a New Yorker to a much simpler life made a lot of sense for a sitcom and still do. Is it reality? Certainly not, but that's why I watch TV sitcoms. If I want reality, I turn on the news. As for me, if this were to come out on DVD, I would be the first in line!

This show isn't the Worldly New Yorker Moves to Hicksville show like its preseason publicity led us to think. Given the usual showbiz snobbery about the parts of the U.S. between the two coasts, the misdirection wasn't surprising. The conflict is more Self vs. Family than it is Sophisticate vs. Rube. For one thing, the show is set in Kansas City--hardly a one-horse town. Breckin Meyer is generally affable as the self-centered New Yorker who doesn't dislike his wife's family so much as he doesn't want his life to be centered around it. His major nemeses are his wife's bitter sister (Emily Rutherfurd) and mother (Nancy Lenehan, who could patent her uniquely cutting brand of astringent, passive-aggressive authority). Some of the minor characters need more development, and I don't find the character of the idiot son (so dysfunctional he seems brain-damaged) particularly funny. The various schemes Tom uses to thwart the attempts of his wife's family to indoctrinate him it its ways and the often surprising ways those schemes boomerang on him could make for an entertaining show if it lasts and can manage to work the kinks out.

I thought this show was great. It had some over-the-top characters but that only made it more lovable. There were so many quirky things about the show that I am still reminded of it. I find myself wanting to create my own "doghouse" and put people in it when they annoy me. I'd love to see Breckin Meyer have a show that works for him. He's such a likable guy. It is fun to see "Mary" in her new role as the "New Christine", it is such a 180 from the former role. When shows like this get the boot, I wonder why... what was it about the show, the characters, the storyline that made them pull the plug? I find that happens to a lot of shows I like, but I must just not follow the mainstream.