Watching Ellie

No word could describe this show better than "trite".

It's little more than oversimplified stereotypes, sophomoric clichés and predictable, stupid situations that EVERYONE has seen in dozens of shows before.

This show exudes stupidity but not in a clever or parodied way. The characters are 2-D, plastic, petty and predictable.

Sometimes I can recommend a show to SOMEONE or SOME demographic. However I can recommend this show to NO ONE. There's nothing new here.

What you can get in this show you can get, and better, nearly everywhere else.

Sorry, let me rephrase that: it was the best of shows, THEN it was the worst of shows. After its brilliant initial run proved it too sophisticated for a mass network audience, the lovely and genuinely charming Watching Ellie disappeared. Now it's back, in a grotesque, dumbed-down version with the same actors playing characters who have the same names and I guess are supposed to be the same characters. The only problem with this is that there is no character consistency; and indeed in the new version there are no characters at all, only are sit-com stereotypes. The 'humor', now that it can't be rooted in the characters (as, again, there are none) is reduced to the utterly predictable and insultingly stupid. (The man Ellie gave the finger to could have been her big break - what a shock! Her boyfriend isn't cheating on her, he's trying to further her career - who could have guessed?!) In lieu of the laughter that will no longer be forthcoming from the audience, the producers have kindly supplied the canned variety.

The original Ellie, as fans will fondly recall, allowed amusing events to happen naturally, preferring a handful of genuinely funny moments in a half-hour to five lousy punch-lines per minute. They didn't even require that each episode end with a joke. Audiences, confused and perplexed by the lack of formula (duh, what am I supposed to laugh at? duh, this sure isn't Will and Grace!) stayed away in droves.

Rather than making 'Ellie for Dummies,' why couldn't the show have been transferred to, say, HBO, where intelligent, laugh-track-free comedies seem to flourish? (Dare I point out that even Fox network, which airs Bernie Mac and Malcolm in the Middle, has recognized the value of the laugh-track-free, single camera, half-hour comedy?) Watching the 2003 version of Ellie is like having dinner with a former best friend who has since been lobotomized. And the food and the service are lousy too.

Will there ever be a successful "Seinfeld" spin-off? Maybe. But I'm still waiting. Julia Lous-Dreyfuss has talent, which she wonderfully demonstrated on the hit sitcom. This show is just as lame as most sitcoms. But I guess the creators felt it had "hit" written all over it, because it's new and innovative: no laugh track and shot in real time. I gotta admit, that is original. But where's the laughs? Added to the cast are the talents of Don Lake and Peter Stormare, but they're also given thankless roles. The show is good-natured and never depends on cheap sex gags, but it's also incredibly dull. I'd rather watch paint try than watch Ellie.

My score: 3 (out of 10)

I was not expecting too much with this show - seeing the success of most spin-offs from Seinfeld failed, I was hoping Watching Ellie wouldn't suffer the same fate...but the show was just plain terrible. While the real-time format was somewhat original (sorry, "24" made it first), there was absolutely no structure whatsoever to the show. There were random events after random events, and the show literally became...well, a show about nothing - and not in the good way. The jokes failed regularly; while I applaud their decision to avoid a laugh track, there's something else they should have done away with: sitcom jokes. While the show is not all sitcom jokes, there were enough in there to realize just how bad such styled jokes are without a laugh track to encourage your humor. There was no Sex and the City humor in here, or even Malcolm in the Middle humor. Frankly, there was no humor. The little clock was no longer a means to orient yourself in Ellie's world - instead, it became more of a dragging clock. It is kind of like being in school, watching the clock and waiting for the 12:00 lunch bell...and the clock just drags sooooo slowly. Watching Ellie crashed and burned pretty damn badly.

Really not a bad idea, but Julia Louis-Dreyfus is no Lucille Ball. I didn't buy it when she accidentally closed the grand piano. She's an okay singer, I guess, but I find it odd that they would name her charactar "Ellie". I know it's supposed to be "Eleanor" but it sounds too close to "Elaine". This show really wasn't that funny, but that's not to discredit Louis-Dreyfus as an actress. With the right script and a better time slot, she could make it work! I would also like to see her in movies again.