Madigan Men

Well, the Disney folks have done it again to ABC and its shrinking pool of eyeballs. They put "Madigan Men" on hiatus, a polite TV term for lethal injection. The show wasn't smutty enough like "Two guys and a pizza girl", a show that set the record for getting two characters in bed (43 seconds).

"Madigan Men" could have found an audience given the time. Irish Americans have not had a decent series since "The Cavanaughs".

Since I am interested in Irish culture, I actually liked this series because it was a very humorous mix of Irish and American cultures. Sadly, as with so many other series that came before and after this, it was not a ratings success and ABC decided to cancel it after only 9 episodes. These very short-sighted network execs seem to forget that some of the best television series were not top-10 or -20 shows in their first season but they later caught on with the viewing public and became major successes. Series like The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Cheers, Hill St. Blues and the Odd Couple started off with very low ratings (in the case of the Odd Couple, it didn't become a success until after it had gone into syndication). If these series were shown today, they probably would not survive the first season. Over the last 10 years, some very good series like Pan Am, Alcatraz, The Firm and Tron Uprising were canceled after just one season because of poor rating. Instead of having faith in their products finding an audience, the networks decided to kill these series too soon. Nowadays, if you aren't in the top-10 in your first month, you won't last very long and that's a shame.

This show was very funny, and a good effort by Gabriel Byrne, Bringing Phil MacHale at the end of the show was really good, he was hilarious. But not everyone is the same, and Madigan Men just didn't fit in with such shows as, "Two guys and a girl.", "Norm." and "Whose line is it anyway?"

I, too, tune in to watch this show purely because Gabriel Byrne is in it. I have seen his previous works and thought this show would be worth watching as well. As it turns out, it is! The show is funny and has many realistic concepts. The only thing I do not like about the show are Benjamin's (Gabriel Byrne) co-workers. I think they are quite annoying. Overall, I would recommend this show.add it to your TV watching schedule on Friday nights. :0)

I couldn't believe that RTE (the Irish national station) bought this programme. Or that Gabriel Byrne made it. Because (and it was obvious from the plot outline) this, like so many other American "Irish" projects, suffers from a major flaw; Oirishness. For decades Americans have been making this sort of rubbish, with tacky leprechaun accents & ridiculous phrases ("you played like a magic fairy"). Gabriel Byrne's father's accent is of particular note when assessing this form of "entertainment". He sounds as if the only research he's done for the part of an Irishman was to watch "Darby O'Gill" 18 times. I was glad to hear this show has been cancelled in the US, hopefully most Irish people will join me in ignoring this carp.