Ferris Bueller

The road to you-know-where is paved with good intentions.

And I'm sure there are a lot of producers, directors and so forth who are headed that way after seeing the prime-time terror they have wrought here.

"Ferris Bueller" is a TV version of the everyday high-school life of the lead character from John Hughes' brilliant movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". And while the basic idea is good, everything else is completely done wrong.

Schlatter is a lot of the problem. Though he looks appropriately young, he just seems too cocky, too arrogant and too smug as Ferris to appeal the same way as Matthew Broderick did. He manages to begin the ship sinking early.

Not much better are Aniston as his sister, Riehle as Ed Rooney and not even the actors that play his parents, girlfriend or best pal Cameron Frye make as much of an impression as their counterparts did on film.

And then there were the scripts; not half as inventive as the movie; not even cameos by whomever happened to be on the NBC studio back lot that day make much difference. No, even good direction (by Bixby, Lynn, etc) helps.

In the end, the "Ferris Bueller" series didn't even last 13 episodes. What do you know, looks like Ed Rooney got his revenge after all.

No stars. Hardly worth thinking about; unless you just want to get a headache.

I had to add my two cents in here. I'm fairly sure that no one was expecting this show to live up to the movie. So don't be surprised if it just doesn't seem like Ferris Bueller. After all, Matthew Broderick is Ferris Bueller, in the same way that Stallone is Rocky, Pat Morita is Mr. Miyagi, and Jaleel White is Urkel. It just isn't Ferris without him and the supporting cast from the movie. While Ami Dolenz and Jennifer Aniston are good looking actresses, they aren't enough to keep my interest for more than one episode.

OK--this was not up to the original movie (which was great)...but how could it be? For what it was (a TV series) it was pretty good. I thought Schlatter was dead on as Ferris--his talking to the audience was well-done and I laughed out loud when he took a chainsaw to a cardboard cutout of Matthew Broderick from the film. And I though Jennifer Aniston was perfect as his obnoxious sister. I seem to be alone in liking this, but I think people are comparing it way too much to the movie. There's no way any TV series could measure up to that. Taken on it own I thought it was a fun TV series.

You can't blame them really. With 'Ferris Bueller' being such a hug film (which it still is to this day) you can't blame TV networks for wanting to exploit that in some way.

This TV series version of the film isn't bad, it just pales heavily in comparison, and everyone playing the main roles sadly isn't as good as their film counterparts.

It was a nice idea, it just didn't work.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off was a modern classic. A clever, lovable film. This, on the other hand, just doesn't work. It isn't trying to insult the original, but it can't help it. Don't watch it, and don't worry about it. It was a bad idea which luckily wasn't on the tube very long.