Tre per tre

When I first watched Threes a Crowd I didn't really like it. It felt odd. I am a Threes Company fanatic and I think I didn't want change. Now that I watch it on PlutoTV while I work from home I really appreciate it. EZ grew on me and Vicki's father cracks me up. Great cast all around. I think one more season would have been neat but hey it's more Jack Tripper. That works for me.

Three's a Crowd is boring, direction-less, and painfully unfunny. The producers made no attempt to create a new and exciting vehicle for John Ritter's brilliant physical comedy, they were simply coasting on the laurels of Three's Company's success.

Three's a Crowd obviously couldn't have featured any of the dynamics that made Three's Company so hilarious like the sexual tensions and misunderstandings that come as a result of a man living with two women; not to mention Jack's charade of pretending that he was gay around Mr. Roper, and later Mr. Furley, so he could go on living in the apartment. So what did they do to make up for those missing attributes on this spin-off?

Nothing. The Jack Tripper of this show is barely the same character from Three's Company. The overzealous, yet lovable klutz is rarely seen here. Instead, Jack is a boring husband and business owner nearing middle-age. His wife, Vicki, played by Mary Cadorette, is equally as uncharismatic. We get to see glimpses of the old Jack in the episodes, "Jack Gets Trashed" and "A Star Is Born" but these sightings are too few and far between. In fact, Jack is even used as a straight man to wackier characters like his chef, E.Z. Taylor.

E.Z., a Spicoli-like surf bum is more annoying than funny. Why didn't they use Felipe Gomez, the reoccurring character from seasons 5 to 7 of Three's Company, for the chef? Not only was that character hilarious but he shared an awesome chemistry with Jack. I guess that pairing would have worked too well.

Jack's antagonistic relationship with his father-in-law, Mr. Bradford, played by Robert Mandan of Soap, would have been more entertaining if we hadn't seen it done before. They share the exact same discord that Jack had with Mr. Angelino, only not near as amusing.

Jack's mother-in-law, Claudia, played by Jessica Walter, is on this show for the sole purpose of exchanging clichéd ex-spouse jokes with Mr. Bradford. Henny Youngman should have sued the show just on the basis of these two characters stealing his material.

It's no shock that this show only lasted a single season. The only great thing about Three's a Crowd is that it gives us much more of an appreciation for Three's Company.

Just finished a Three's Company marathon, complete with spin-offs (I also wrote a review for The Ropers).

TAC is not as bad as some other reviewers have stated, but it's certainly a letdown after Three's Company. It doesn't help that by the time Season 8 of Three's Company came around, the show had grown a bit stale: still enjoyable but running out of steam. That does not make for a great hand-off to the new show.

And the new show is in a lot of ways the same as the old show, only much more tepid. Mary Cordette as Vicki Bradford, Jack's girlfriend, is perfectly fine, but comedy is not her metier. Robert Mandan as Mr. Bradford is a pro. His presence is stabilizing, as is the reoccurring role of Jessica Walter as Claudia, Vicki's mother. Alan Campbell as Jack's surfer-dude sous-chef is a bit grating.

But tepidity is the issue. The show doesn't know what it wants to be. The first five or six episodes are sluggish because they mostly continue the new-couple-in-love storyline that, quite frankly, dragged down the final episodes of Three's Company. In fact, this rom-com-lite feel permeates the entire single season of TAC. Other times, the show tries to go for the tried-and-true formulae of TC: the physical pratfalls of Ritter, the double-entendres, the overheard conversations, the misunderstood conversations. Occasionally, they are hilarious, and one is briefly reminded of the pure farce of TC.

Farce. That's what I and so many viewers loved about TC. The original show did not try to be serious. It did not try to lecture or pander. It refused to turn mawkish or maudlin (NOTE: The show's final hour-long episode is an exception, awkwardly going for gush instead of gut-busting laughs). TAC, thus, is in an awkward position. If it tries to rehash TC's blueprint, it risks being lambasted as unoriginal. If it tries to go in a different direction--lukewarm and fuzzy romance with dashes of humor added in--the show is also painted into a corner.

Nonetheless, the show is far from awful. In fact, it finds its semi-stride for a number of mid-season episodes. TAC is harmless and nostalgic, especially for anyone, like me, who misses Ritter, Three's Company, and 80s neon fashion!

After fantastic 8 seasons of "Three's company" I was left disappointed with how the things wrapped up for the gang - the creators basically crumpled Terri & Janet's character's exits from the show instead focusing the last episodes on Jack and his new relationship with Vicky almost completely. Suffice it to say that Three's a crowd felt out of place and none of the cast members (except Richard Klein's Larry) ever appeared on the show or were even mentioned by name once: after so much time together the creators could have at least acknowledged their own characters with a line or two. Besides this fact the series was flat, tired and uninspiring and there are only 3-4 episodes out of the whole season of 22 that really stand out - all the rest is filler leading the characters nowhere; multiple episodes ended without proper resolution of the story arcs - so what was the point of this whole show? Beats me. Though there was a nice addition to the cast in the face of E.Z. character played marvellously by Alan Campbell and John Ritter and Mary Cadorette were a great on-screen couple, they sadly got their chemistry wasted on this mess of a TV spin-off of a far superior original.

I don't understand why this show wasn't a hit, It only lasted one season, In my opinion it was slightly funnier than Three's Company. I taped many episodes about three years ago when a local channel aired it in syndication. Oh well...