The Bradys

Sure it was cheesy and took itself too seriously, but I find it very easy to love, nonetheless, and it holds a special place among my favorite shows.It isn't high quality in the way my other favorites are, but there is still something very special about it, and it's the natural followup to "A Very Brady Christmas". Leah Ayres did a fine job as the replacement Marcia, and the rest of the cast got a chance to show that they truly were talented dramatic actors all along. I can't help but love this show.

This show probably ended the notion of people trying to milk the Brady franchise for all its worth. The idea of trying to turn one of the corniest, but memorable, sitcoms in television history into an hour long drama is probably one of the worst ideas in the history of television. To me, the idea of the Brady's finally having real life problems is so absurd after the surrealism of the original series. Just thank God they didn't bring back cousin Oliver.

When The Bradys aired in 1990 a lot of people called the short lived series Brady Something a Thirty Something parody which was a drama on ABC at the time. It was an attempt for The Brady Bunch to be taken seriously but failed. The first episode which was a two hour pilot made Bobby Brady a paraplegic and Marcia an alcoholic in another episode. CBS aired The Bradys on Fridays with the hope that Dallas would help draw viewers which didn't cause ABC had the successful TGIF shows at the time and Dallas was waning in popularity.

Being a fan of "The Brady Bunch", I was interested when I first heard that CBS was going to release this show as a Spring replacement.

Since I couldn't watch the episodes at the time it aired due to other commitments, I set the VCR for the first episode. When I watched it, I didn't like what I saw. It looked horrible. I thought that maybe it was a fluke, so I taped another episode and it was more of the same.

What bothered me the most is it seemed like the Brady Family was going out of their way to say, "we are no longer that goody-goody little family you used to know and remember, way back when".

Also, it seemed like every week, a new crisis struck the Brady family; From Marcia becomes an alcoholic, or Bobby becoming a paraplegic in a racing accident. You had to ask yourself what tragedy could happen next; Peter gets shot in a bank holdup? Or maybe Cindy ends up missing.

With every week being what seems like "The Brady crisis of the week", it makes the show unbelievable and you end up thinking; No family could have as many problems as they do.

Just watching it makes it painful to watch; Not painful in the sense that you're feeling the Brady's tragedy, but getting that "I can't take anymore of this crap" feeling.

Only 4 episodes were aired and Maureen McCormick had the good sense to stay away from this "turkey". In a way, I felt it was 4 episodes too many.

I don't care what anyone says, this was a very good show!!! 10 out of 10 for me! It was fun seeing them reunite the Bradys again, but unfortunately no one gave this new show a good chance to survive. The main reason it failed isn't because it was a bad show, it was because the network played it too early. They should have targeted the adult audience who were raised with the Bradys.

This new drama was VERY GOOD! I loved it! I taped every show. The only thing I didn't like is they made Mike a politician. I hated that idea. But working for an architect myself, I unfortunately know how much architecture is closely related to politics. But for an honest politician, I found Mike had a LOT of conflicts of interest!!! Sure didn't make him look too clean when several members of his family are involved with his proposal. Another thing I didn't like is when Nora joined her two sisters-in-law in the catering business when she's a nurse.

I loved that Marcia stood by Wally through thick and thin! I loved that they brought realistic problems i.e. Wally constantly looking for a job, Marcia and Wally being homeless, Marcia drinking too much, Bobby being paralyzed, Jan & Phillip who can't conceive, Greg & Peter getting into a huge fight only to have Dr. Greg ultimately save his brother's life. How can anyone say that these are not good story lines? I still get mad every time I think that this show was cut short when it could easily have had a long life!