Stark Raving Mad

When I first saw an ad for this show, I thought it would only last one episode. When I saw it, I laughed hysterically. Tony Shalhoub is hilarious, as is Neil Patrick Harris. I didn't think that we would see him past Doogie Howser. Hopefully this will be around for a while. It never fails to cheer me up when I am down.

Most sitcoms are average families in one form or another, and the foibles of family life. If Castle were made into a comedy and they removed the murder mystery stuff, you would have something like SRM. NBC was really wrong to cancel this. The creator is the same creator responsible for the best sitcom ever written ... Modern Family. Steve Levitan is awesome in his vehicles. This is one that was destined for gold.

There are a couple caveats. Despite the writing, the energy level on the actors seemed to be low. What was with the fake moustache on Shalhoub? It really looked like a cheap Halloween moustache. I think the casting could have been tweaked a bit. I like Shalhoub, but Neil Harris seemed a bit pulled back from his part. Not totally engaged.

I still like the idea of a rich author who is a bit nuts, be it Richard Castle or Tony's character. Putting an opposite in the water with him was genius. Richard Castle had no uptight opposites on his show. The love affair between Beckett and Castle never worked or fit the show. Raving Mad's set was unnecessarily middle class and stark. Definitely not the set decorator that Castle had. I know I keep comparing SRM and Castle, and aside from one is a dramedy and the other a comedy, there were a lot of parallels. Actually I was pulling for the comedy in Castle, not the drama. I don't watch murder mystery shows per se.

I think not throwing a family in SRM like they did on Castle was a good thing. Whereas Castle attempted to be all things ... drama, thriller, comedy, and romance ... SRM attempted to be only comedy. You can only do so much in twenty minutes a week. The commercial interruptions in the broadcast sitcoms are bad enough, without dividing a show into four different pies.

If they had given the same chance to Seinfeld that they gave to SRM, we would be watching reruns on YouTube of Season One only of Seinfeld. A real shame. Its possible that Levitan should reengineer the show ratcheting up the lifestyle and the financial position of the main character. I think the girls should be rethought.

I gave my thoughts online in a conversation with Chuck Lorre about where to take Two and a Half Men, and he chose a winning route. Ashton Kutcher was not perfect, but a good choice, and while the finale was disappointing, the show had some very well done facets such as set decoration, concept, core stars, and half of the episode story lines. I say all that to say Stark Raving Mad was not perfect, but the concept is brilliant, the main stars are fairly close to perfect, and it begs to be binge watched. The writing on Stark was better than the writing on Two and a Half Men. Like I say, the cluttered impoverished looking loft that Ian Stark lives in is more suited to some twenty somethings wanting to be software billionaires who are just starting out, not a successful novelist of horror. Stephen King lives better than Ian Stark.

Enough for now. Have fun.

It's a shame this show only lasted like one season. I found it to be really funny. I like Tony Shalhoub in almost anything that he does, and he was great as an eccentric, more goofy version of Stephen King. He never fails to haul in the laughs, with his childish little pranks. And then we introduce his roommate: an anal retentive young man with obsessive compulsive disorder. A great combo! Neil Patrick Harris shows off his comic skills, as opposed to playing the serious doc on "Doogie Howser, M.D." I think Harris has a good head on his shoulders, and if he keeps up the good work, he can succeed in the biz. Hopefully, he will, because I don't want him to become another Macaulay Culkin.

"Stark Raving Mad" was very funny, and hopefully they'll show the reruns on USA. As for Shalhoub and Harris, good luck in your future endeavors.

My score: 7 (out of 10)

Well, those morons at NBC have done it again! One of the funniest shows on TV these days is about to longer be on TV. Obviously, judging by both the people who have previous written here, and the fact they won a People's Choice Award for Favorite New Comedy, "Stark Raving Mad" was well loved, despite what those stupid Neilson ratings say. But even if it had come back, chances are they'd toy with it and try to "fix" it and end up screwing it up worse anyway, like NBC always does with Thursday night shows (Jesse, The Naked Truth, Veronica's Closet, Suddenly Susan. . .)!

Tonight, they finally aired another good one, the much delayed "The Pidgeon" episode with Wes Craven. I saw absolutely no promotion for this episode, which should have aired during "guest star week" last week. Although there's another new one listed for next week, "He's Gotta Have It," judging by next week's commercials, it probably won't air. What a waste to spend the money to make these shows, when they don't bother to air a lot of them!

Perhaps through cable this series will have an afterlife in the future. But until then, we will miss you, Ian Stark, Henry McNeeley, and associates. And a big THANK YOU to NBC for killing another of their increasingly few, hysterical sitcoms!

OK, I wasn't as broken up as when they cancelled Bakersfield PD, the early canning of which was one of the great Media Crimes of the 20th century, but axing this one was a big mistake! As was mentioned by others with taste, the show kept getting better and better and was coming into its own. This they only give one year but Veronica's Closet was allowed to smell up the tube for three years? Yeah, that makes sense. I can only hope that SRM and Sports Night will be picked up by another network and the talents (including the mind-tinglingly pretty Heather Paige Kent) will continue in the series. Loved the theme, too.