The Odd Couple

I remember watching the 70s incarnation of The Odd Couple with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman and to me it was one of my favorite sitcoms.

I also remember with the New Odd Couple with Ron Glass and Demond Wilson and it wasn't very good since many of the episodes were remakes of the Randall-Klugman series.

Now, more than 30 years later, The Odd Couple is back, with Thomas Lennon as Felix and Matthew Perry (who is also the executive producer) as Oscar. It doesn't look a lot like the first two versions since there is a different supporting cast. Instead of the poker gang of Speed, Vinnie and Roy and also the Pigeon Sisters, there's Dani, Oscar's assistant played by Yvette Nicole Brown and Lindsay Sloane as their upstairs neighbor Emily.

The one character that's absent from this version is Murray the Cop. Al Molinaro made the character famous in the original and John Schuck took over the role in the Glass-Wilson version.

Also, Oscar is no longer a sportswriter, he's a sports radio talk show host. Felix is still a commercial photographer.

On the plus side, Lennon and Perry have good chemistry as Felix and Oscar. On the minus side, the episodes have a lot raunchier humor than the Randall-Klugman version.

The one thing the producers did right was bringing in Garry Marshall, who produced the first two versions as a consultant. With The Big Bang Theory as a lead in, it has been even more successful in the ratings than the first two versions. But can it sustain itself without Big Bang?

This show has grown on me. The first season seemed not so funny, but as I have allowed the characters to grow, the show seemed to get funnier. Thomas Lennon has really been showing his acting attributes, and looking back on his other movie and TV roles, he is a pretty funny guy. Good chemistry between Thomas and Matthew. Wish it would ha e done better for them.

It is so hard to get into this show today when you were so use to watching the original Odd Couple show. No one can be such a slob as Jack Klugman, he played that role so good. I'm not saying I hate the new show, it has it's good laughs. Matthew Perry and Thomas Lennon do a great job to be Oscar and Felix. It's hard to fill the shoes of the original cast but they do a great job. Each episode does keeps your attention because you never know what is going to happen next. If you blink you will miss some funny thing. The thing I see wrong is that they have changed Oscar and Felix since the original show. If you are going to keep the same characters then at least keep the way they live the same. Oscar Madison was a complete slob but in the new show he is not even close to that role. I really don't see this show going to much further. It's to far away from the original show.

The man is a comedy actor who simply cannot shake a depressive streak off his back. It simply plagued his other attempts at comedy series. This one, though, got the right combo to allow laughs that were not undermined by some sad backstory. It did not have the ambitus nor time to become an A cathegory series, but it reminds of Frasier, and it is an enjoyable B series, who should not have been cancelled.

This show had it's moments and at times I did laugh. I think my biggest problem with the show is that I remember how well Jack Klugman and Tony Randall played Oscar and Felix. They are very big shoes to fill and I am sure I am not the only one who will compare all of them. I also had problems trying to separate Chandler Bing and Oscar Madison. This happens frequently when an actor plays a part for a long time as Matthew did in friends(10 years).

The best part of this show was when Dave Foley and Wendell Pierce were at Oscar's. I was saddened to see that Dave is only in one episode though.

I believe the show has potential and given time they can do well with the show. But sometimes it is better to just remember how great some of the old shows are and make new comedies.