'Til Death

This show was so good but the new season is horrible. Woodcocks were great - why did they take them out? Kenny was the best character - made me LOL and he is gone. WTF? The Allie and Doug characters are lame - no other word to describe watching them outside of painful. I fast forwarded past most of "the wedding" episode - if I wanted to watch a cartoon I would. Now Til Death has added their political comments to the show in "the wedding" episode. We don't tune in to hear your political agenda. Boston Legal did that and they are off the air. The worst part of the show used to be the one scene in every episode (yes we noticed) where Joely would have her fake boobs (we know they are fake, too) hanging out and now the entire show is horrible. Change is not good - change it back or I'm out and I bet many more people are too.

The first two seasons of this are a decent funny sitcom. It is basically about a long time married couple who have a newly married couple move into next to them. This is fine for the first two seasons. However in Season 3 the newly married couple disappear and are erased from history.

It then just becomes about the established married couple. However a few episodes for Season 2 were inserted into Season 3 so the newly married couple just suddenly appear. Season 3 is also out of order so Kenny (who was my favourite character) is living with them with no explanation until later on in the season when he moves in.

Season 4 just loses the plot completely. Kenny disappears. A rich man and his young wife move in (if he was rich why would he live in a working class suburb??) An ongoing joke about the married couples, daughter's boyfriend thinking he is living in a sitcom stops being funny after the first episode the joke appears. One episode involves cartoons of the characters (and jumping a shark). It felt like they knew it was the last season and all the ideas they had for another six seasons they were cramming in. This is without the fact the daughter changes actress four times (twice in Season 4).

It is a shame as the acting is great. The first two seasons were good but it just all falls apart. I really wish I had left it alone after Season 2.

Brad Garrett is the glue holding this together. Everybody else is playing off his character & he is doing fine, much the same way he did well on that Raymond series. In a way Garrett is the Raymond of this series. Fox has been giving this show a chance and is getting rewarded as the show is improving and the ratings are going up.

The scripts have had a wide range from somewhat funny to very funny. At first, it looked like these marriages between the two couples were totally different. The Woodcocks marriage was the eyes wide open smitten stage while Garretts union was the yes we've been together forever stage. The comedy was based upon laughing at how naive the Woodcocks were.

What has happened is that we are seeing the two marriages evolve. Woodcocks marriage is finding out it takes more than being smitten to make things work and they are learning to cope. Garretts marriage is finding out that even though they are comfortable they can still find heat and new things in their relationship. This is helping the show evolve into more than it was when it started.

The actress who is playing Garretts wife on this show is really evolving into a much better comedian as this show grows. Woodcocks wife who is supposed to be the young trophy one is still a bit up on the shelf so to speak. What is going to be interesting is to keep watching as the couples continue to change, in funny sort of ways each show.

There is some class warfare comedy undertones here as Garrett is the long time teacher & Woodcock is the young Administrator who is his boss. This helps the show along at times too.

I think this show seems kind of promising, especially since Brad Garrett from "Everybody Loves Raymond" is the star of the show. Brad Garrett plays a guy named Eddie Stamm who is one of those unhappy married guys who has been married for over 8,000 days to his wife, Joy Stamm (Joely Fisher). Then one day a newlywed couple (Eddie Kaye Thomas and Kat Foster) moves in next door and they try to teach the newlyweds on how marriage actually works. I liked the jokes where Brad Garrett is teaching Eddie Kaye Thomas about his marriage life and how everything else is pretty obvious in marriage. I hope this show lasts. This show premiered on FOX, September 2006.

BOTTOM LINE: IF YOU LIKE BRAD GARRETT ON "RAYMOND" THEN YOU WOULD LIKE HIM ON THIS SHOW

This was actually quite a funny sitcom comedy for the first two seasons. The perky newly wed Woodcocks were in sharp contrast to the 20 year married Starks. I frequently laughed out loud and looked forward to watching it. There were plenty of pointed insights into relationships and married life in general.

Then something bizarre happened in season 3. The Woodcocks their next door neighbors disappear with no explanation offered & Eddie becomes big brother to a full grown black man (an absolutely ridiculous story line). Then the black man moves in with them. Then we have a cast of black characters added on. Were the producers including Brad Garrett who is also the lead actor cynically chasing urban African American TV ratings? Would love to know the thinking behind this.

The show becomes desperately unfunny immediately after that. The show then stopped after season 4. A mystery....