9JKL

I'm writing this review after I watched 8 episodes.

This is a SitCom with a fake laugh track, basically about an oppressively loving mother who lives (with her husband) next door of her two 40-ish sons (9J 9K and 9L is the adjacent apartments) and who suffocates with her love the one (and single) son played by Mark Feuerstein.

OK. So it is what it is. That's the TV genre. IMDb is filled with one star reviews because of this. If you hate it (especially the canned laugh), don't watch it. It isn't for you and go watch something else.

BUT for its genre and its format and its typicality... isn't that bad. Isn't great, and by the definition of canned-laugh-sitcoms groundbreaking, but it is an OK show to spend 21 minutes without really caring about deep meanings. The jokes are mild and the situations typical and you can see them coming from a mile away but ...again... that's the genre.

Overall: A mother who suffocates with caring her adult "child" is the epitome of ALL SitComs. So, this is one of those. Not great, not bad either.

Loved Cliff Calley on The West Wing. Really loved Hank Lawson on Royal Pains. Not loving 9JKL, although Mark's charm and Linda Lavin's quintessential stereotype of the Jewish mother are occasionally fun, in a kind of cringe-moment way. Elliott Gould adds a sweet if bumbling touch as the henpecked dad.

But sad to say that this sit com is the kind of insult to intelligence that made me leave broadcast channel shows years ago. The brother and sister in law are superfluous. Not sure of the purpose for the door man, although the reality check kid is useful. It must be really hard to write good 22 minute comedy.

I'd much rather see Feuerstein bring his charm and humor to another hour long drama that has something significant to say. Sorry, Mark, this show just isn't worthy of your talents.

9JKL has a likable cast, some sporadically pleasant comedy moments, and a concept that is decent (albeit not very original), but the plots are not brilliant and the hilarity bar is not set very high. However, the paucity of great (or even consistently good) jokes, quips or scenarios is exacerbated by the fact that the show is overwhelmed by regular and riotous canned laughter to the point that I suspect Homer Simpson's button pecking bird was in charge of it. As such, the laughter track barely stops, even when characters are not really doing or saying anything that could elicit such roars of comedy approval. So, if 9JKL was a parody of 90s sitcoms it would be a work of postmodern genius, but sadly, it isn't.

The overly intrusive mother and interfering, judgmental family thing has been done to death and by actors who made it both funny and believable. Linda Lavin and Elliott Gould may be very nice people, but whoever cast them as the parents may not have actually read the script or attended the auditions.

From the effort being put in by the rest of the cast, I get the impression they've already concluded this thing is going nowhere.

I really wish Linda Lavin had a better project to be involved with. This is so beneath her, it's depressing.

The show itself comes across as if it was some high school student's creative writing project; every stupid, obvious, and tired joke possible gets deployed with painful results.

There are some series where you think, 'With a better cast/better writers, this could work." Not the case here. Skip it; probably won't be around much longer.