...Although from seeing some of the posts here, those unfamiliar with it might end up thinking otherwise. After reading the other comments, I felt compelled to add one of my own. Apparently there is a heterosexist double-standard going on here. When a hetero actor portrays consecutive roles in which hetero dating or intimate relations are involved, (which is most of the time,) whether in movies or on TV, people don't roll their eyes and say "oh brother, they're playing a straight person again." And the comparison between Ellen's character also being gay in this show (after all, she's gay in real life) and Bill Cosby playing another character who is the "upper middle class father of two or three kids" is a specious one. Now if Bill Cosby had another show where his new character was heterosexual (which he is in real life), people..... wouldn't bat an eyelash! Every time something gay related is involved, some people seem to take it as though Ellen is throwing her big gay ways in their faces. She mentions an ex girlfriend. "Oh, please spare us!" She has female/(lesbian!)-oriented posters in her bedroom--and an abstract painting which, one reviewer speculates, "appears" to be a vagina. That's the funny thing about abstract paintings. They "appear" to be different things to different individuals.
Apparently, because Ellen's character is gay, then in some people's minds the show must have a "cause," that because her character is gay, she must be trying to cram lesbianism down Americans' throats. Like an abstract painting, I think that attitude reveals more about the individual who holds it than it does about the subject. The "argument" in favor of this show is that it's funny. But the argument against it shouldn't be that her character is gay.
Aside from the gay issue, I think the quality of the show is improving. The writing seems to be getting better. As for the comment about the laugh track, I hadn't found it distracting, myself. For the record, though, the show is filmed before a live studio audience.
