Rules of Engagement

i only started watching this recently and now i'm hooked. i watched one episode just to say i had and ended up watching about 10episodes in a row. this a lot smarter than i thought, the one-liners are excellent, the characters have depth, and the story is pretty good as well. spade is good as the weaselly playboy, Hudson is good as the idiot, the women are good at being the kinda normal average women in relationships, but Patrick Warburton is the star. his timing is perfect, his delivery is excellent and he comes across a genuinely like-able guy. a guy that most guys could relate to. all in all i think there is something or someone in the show that most people can relate to and enjoy.

watch a few episodes, you be hooked!

I came across this show by chance a couple years ago; long after it had been cancelled, but was immediately hooked! In many ways it reminded me of Married With Children, with I suppose Adam and Russell being the children for this show? While the humor can be a bit tedious at times, the chemistry the characters have brings a nostalgic comfort to a dying genre - the sitcom. After catching a few episodes in syndication, I sought out the show on DVD, but then quickly noticed that the entire series was on Netflix.

Patrick's comedic delivery as Jeff was spot on. Adam's incessant obliviousness wasn't wholly present during the first season, and wore a bit thin as the show went on, but I found this style of humor to be somewhat charming compared to the other characters. Then there's of course David Spade's character Russell Dunbar. He didn't really have much of an arc throughout the series, and he definitely made me laugh more often than not, but he was really more of a caricature than anything. It wasn't until his foil, Timmy (Timir) came along that I began to appreciate their banter. Audrey and Jennifer are also excellent in their respective roles, and they are great standouts in this male-oriented show. (I short-changed them quite a bit, sorry)

It's unfortunate the show only lasted five seasons. I felt I had at least a few years left; especially coming back after a year-long hiatus. There were a couple of significant breaks in continuity, Timmy's immigration status for example, but not a show-killer IMHO. I've now watched the show multiple times and continue to find things I hadn't noticed before that make me laugh.

Generally speaking, the plot was much better than I was expecting. The laugh track was a bit annoying at times and did tend to get in the way; however, there were enough real chuckles in this episode to make up for it. My biggest surprise was finding some of the best lines and situations were not shown in the trailers. Spade, in particular, was not presented in the best light in the earlier promotions, but his character comes across quite well in the pilot. There is is enough eye-candy to please almost anyone and all the regular characters seem up to the task ahead of them. Now, if the writers can just live up to what they have begun.

I will really miss this show when I reach the final episode. It is the perfect show that you can put on after a hard day at work and just laugh at. There are no dark depressing aspects to this show it just aims to entertain with laughter and it definitely succeeds in doing that. There is a basic underlying storyline that helps to propel the show but it is more about the characters living out their day-to-day lives.

Jeff and Audrey are my favourite couple and live up to their stereotypes perfectly. The beer- guzzling, sports-watching neanderthal with a soft-side and his shopaholic, emotional, nagging wife. It may be over the top but it works. The rest of the core cast is also entertaining and each play their part in contributing to a stereotypical world where everyone is funny.

Try not to over think this one, just enjoy it for what it is and you'll find yourself laughing in no time.

I absolutely love this show! So depressed that they cancelled it. I actually only just started to watch it in approximately the last year or so, as a result I have quite a lot of reruns still to watch! Yippee! But of course like a lot of reruns they are played out of order, so it is interesting to see the difference in the older to more recent eps.

The show started with 1 married couple, 1 engaged couple, and David Spade typecast as usual as the single and sleazy playboy. David Spade is probably why I didn't watch the show to start with, because I've never liked anything he was in- till now! This show is great, I love all the characters even David Spade's. I notice that some reviewers here like some of the actors but not others, I've certainly seen shows like that, but this isn't one of them, I think all the actors/actresses are equally talented and their characters are all brilliant. However if you watch the end seasons you won't like the engaged couple, but don't blame it on the actors it was the writers fault, they started the show off brilliantly, the guy (Adam) was a little bit metrosexual and a bit naive (which was a nice foil to his pal the married man who is a very cynical, conservative, male chauvinist type) but really Adam and Jen (his fiancée) were really great characters who were madly in love, however fast forward to the end seasons and the writers have morphed Adam into a complete twit, he's beyond metrosexual and almost camp (one late episode has him being a cheerleader who doesn't seem to understand why his fiancée is embarrassed about this), he doesn't get the point of sarcasm because he is so stupid, contrast this to an earlier season where Russell (David Spade) uses the word ironic to describe something stupid he has done and Adam as quick as a flash says "no your pronouncing it wrong, it's pronounced moronic!" So fairly obviously Adam's character at the beginning was capable of being witty, but the later episodes the writers have transformed him into a complete idiot, then the fact that they have made Adam such a twit leaves his fiancée Jen nowhere to go except to be forever rolling her eyes and basically phoning it in. Though the actor playing Adam still bravely gives it his best. I get the impression that the writers just didn't know what to do with Adam and Jen anymore.

You might wonder then if it is worth watching the later seasons, well it is because during this time they introduced Timmy, Russell's new Indian assistant. Timmy absolutely steals the show in these later eps. Russell and Timmy are like the odd couple, in fact I think this amazing dynamic that they have and the brilliant story lines written for this "couple" is the reason for the engaged couples demise, because the show then really becomes mainly about Russell and Timmy and the married couple (who still have plenty to do but are a little overshadowed as well), and all of this leaves the engaged couple out on the sidelines. I'm not sure what I prefer because when I watch the older episodes I miss Timmy, but then again enjoy watching the dynamics of the engaged couple versus the married couple. So the later eps are a little different from the beginning but I enjoy all the eps pretty much equally (except I really feel sorry for the actors playing Adam and Jen in the later eps!)

Another introduced character near the end is Liz (Russell's girlfriend) but thankfully she didn't last too long because I wasn't too keen on her character.

Oh and I haven't mentioned the married couple much, but they are really the heart and soul of the show and have brilliant story lines, and the guy Jeff, famous as having previously been a well known bit character on Seinfeld, plays a similar hilarious macho type, with his long suffering mostly sensible wife Audrey. In real life this couple really should be divorced but that makes them perfect for comedy!

Of course a lot of the comedy is clichéd as they are all the usual stereotypes of older cynical couple versus naive young lovers, but it is incredibly well written, and the reason stereotypes exist in comedy is because these are people we all have met! What is unique though I think is how they developed Timmy, still a bit of stereotyping but a little different from the direction you would expect and brilliant because of this, and the way the end ep resolves Russell and Timmy's relationship is jaw dropping in its comic unpredictability. So so sad this hilarious show has come to an end.

I would give this show a 10 but must give it a 9, in sympathy to "Adam" who basically had his testicles removed by the writers.