Flying Blind

I was broken-hearted when Flying Blind was canceled after one season. I thought it was one of the funniest series ever. But now I've been re-watching it on YouTube, and I have to admit I don't love it quite as much as before.

The series involves a nebbishy accounts executive who inexplicably lands a gorgeous, fantastically hip woman perpetually followed around by a string of brilliant ex-lovers.

Like Neil, I was a nebbishy New Yorker in the early '90s, so the show represented my dream life of sex and art. How could I not love it?

The humor was very much Catskills comedy, and one of the fascinating features is the difference in delivery styles between Corey Parker and Tea Leoni. They both tell a lot of jokes structured like, "that's the biggest blank since my relative did blank at the blank," but whereas Parker does a Woody Allen impression (a good one), Leoni has this odd, shambling way of telling the same jokes. She is one of those rare comedic actors who sound like they're actually creating the joke as they go along, and while much of the series performance arts jokes seem less edgy than they did in the 90s, her delivery is still pretty unusual.

While I don't love the series as I once did, I still find it quite likable, and there are many excellent performers, including Micheal Tucci as Neil's father (their familial similarity comes mainly in how they tell jokes) and especially Clea Lewis as Alicia's overshadowed roommate.

While this is a far more conventional sitcom than I realized at the time, it actually does have a pretty good sense of the period. Alicia is an exaggeration of a real type, and at times she manages to capture that emotional instability that makes women like her far less appealing to older, wiser men like the me of today, who knows enough to run away.

Some fans may think my 7 star review is too low. If it's any comfort, my 23-year-old self would completely agree with you.

This show has been somewhere in my subconscious for the past 13 years. At the time that this show was on the air I was moving from my parents house in the suburbs (again, after moving back in with them) and just getting fully entrenched in the post modern art world in The Big City. This show captured that time perfectly, complete with post modern performance "pieces" being staged in their loft/warehouse apartment. I related to the unwitting suburban average Joe and the sophisticated metropolitan artists. The characters resonated true for me.

Of course it's been 13 years since I've seen it, and had the series not been cut off at it's inception I might not have built it up in my mind. But, for me, this show captured a time and a place that no other show since has captured. I kept waiting for it to get picked up again. I'm glad to see that other people remember it and that I wasn't the only person out there who watched it.

When will it come out on DVD? Oh, Flying Blind, why has thou forsaken me?

This was one of those great shows from fox, the SAME fox who brought you all the great shows, married with children, in living color, Simpson's, Tracey Ullman, parker lewis cant lose. all of these shows ( with the exception of parker lewis, ) are on DVD for viewing and a reminder of what great TV is about.

If you haven't seen this show, do yourself a favor and HUNT IT DOWN. i have all the episodes on VHS, but since the tape has degraded, it is quite hard to see.

You see many people call it the precursor of the oddball couples comedy. Ned and Stacey, Dharma and Greg, Mad about you, Will and Grace, are ALL copies of this excellent comedy. Thomas Haden Church, Lisa Kudrow, Andy Dick, all have appeared in the show, YEARS before their other shows.

Comparisons to "Dharma and Greg" are fair, although this series was better (I like D&G too, but not anywhere near as much) and the only thing Dharma and Alicia have in common is free-spiritedness. The comparison to "Mad About You," however, is ridiculous. Calling "Mad About You" a classic is even more ridiculous. That aside, as a network suffers through its infancy, many good shows fall by the wayside. Baby nets have very few resources available to sustain good shows if they aren't getting good ratings. "Flying Blind" thus died a most undeserved early death. And as "The Naked Truth" has replaced it in most people's mind's "Tea Leoni file" the chance of anyone purchasing the reruns seems slight; a shame, because I'd like to see it again. "The Naked Truth" was a good show too, but not as good as this one.

It is still one of the best sitcoms I have ever seen. Hip...funny...fabulous...witty...charming...gorgeous! I adore Flying Blind! Although it preceded both...I could best describe it as a mix of (the movie) Party Girl and Dharma & Greg. Perhaps that was the problem... it was too hip, to soon. Great cast...great writing...great premise...and a VERY bad decision in cancelling it!