Fish

Ok, I liked "Barney Miller" back in the '70s (its pretty dated now though). And the character Fish was an amusing grumpy old man, played by Abe Vigoda. But this spinoff may be the WORST SITCOM EVER! Imagine a '70s era sitcom with all bad clothing, lame jokes and canned laughter and just add in five extremely annoying smart-aleck kids: you get this show. If you ever do see it on TV (although I don't know if any station would broadcast reruns of this show), you are bound to be amazed that such an awful train-wreck of a sitcom not only made it on the air, but lasted for over a year! Avoid unless morbid curiosity draws you to it - in that case just be amazed.

First of all, this wasn't a bad series and it had potential. It wasn't "Ethnic Mismatch #644" as one review said, but it proves that people of different races can live together under the same roof. Abe Vigoda is an excellent actor and sadly, he hasn't had nearly enough exposure.

Fish was not perfect, but two of the characters: Fish, who had comical mannerisms and hilarious facial expressions that made me laugh out loud, and his lovely and sweet mannered wife made the show watchable.

The kids were kind of annoying, and it was so hard to actually like them. They could have been written better as characters on the show. The show needed more time to develop. It was certainly better than "Different Strokes", which for me is unwatchable. I have the one season of Fish on DVD and love watching the show, which is amazing in itself. I am quite sure the series would have been a classic it it had a few series under it's belt. It deserved more than just one year. I am not quite sure why it was cancelled in the first year. It just needed a chance to grow.

Ok, I hated "Barney Miller" back in the 70's (though it does have nostalgic value today). And the character Fish was a nasty grumpy old man, played by Abe Vigoda. But this spin-off may be the BEST SITCOM EVER! Imagine a 70's era sitcom with great 70's clothing, funny jokes, and just add in five extremely talented charming kids: you'll love this show. If you ever do see it on TV (Nick at Nite or TV Land is bound to give this show a run) you are sure to be amazed that this show didn't run forever.

Barney Miller had it's good points - and Det. Fish was one of them. Abe Vigoda is the perfect downtrodden "Sad Sack". The popularity of the character led some network genius (of which there were many in the 70's) to decide to spin him off into his own series. And "Fish" was it.

Fish and his wife Bernice (Florence Stanley - the female equivalent of Vigoda) were quite plausible as a long-married couple. The kicker was that they had a houseful of adopted children - that looked like the Rainbow Coalition. They could have named it "Ethnic Mismatch Comedy #644". The kids were "intensely annoying". The worst of the bunch was "Victor" - his character made me want to punch my TV set. The plots were the standard "kids get in trouble but family warmth solves it all in 30 minutes" dreck. In short, the long-suffering Fish character turned into a knowing father figure. It was just too far a departure, typical idiot TV Exec thinking - take a popular character, try to mine his popularity but forget completely about why he was popular in the first place.

As far as I can tell, everybody seemed relatively plausible, but it was just such a bad idea it got deservedly cancelled after one season. It sure isn't the worst sitcom ever (Heck, it's *a lot better* than "My Big Fat Greek Life" - but then again, most things are) but it's definitely towards the bottom of the list.