Imaginary Mary

Alice (Jenna Elfman) survived the disintegration of her family at the age of 6 by creating Imaginary Mary (Rachel Dratch). Mary slowly disappeared as Alice grew up. Alice now runs her own PR firm. She lives an independent relationship-free life until divorcée Ben (Stephen Schneider) shows up at her work. He has three kids; Andy (Nicholas Coombe), Dora (Matreya Scarrwener), and Bunny (Erica Tremblay). Mary reappears in Alice's life as she faces the challenges of being in a new relationship.

Critically panned with no audience, this late-season replacement was canceled after seven episodes. I love Jenna Elfman ever since Dharma and I don't see the hate for Mary. Ben could be more appealing but I like his kids. It's love at first sight and I don't really see it. The show does lack Alice's friends or professional life. She should have at least an assistant although I guess Mary is her friend. I like the characters and therefore I like the show.

On paper, the show's premise turned me away but I found myself watching ten minutes of it and not turning it off. Mary is more of the voices in the main character's head, a la JD's voice overs in Scrubs. I hate to compare the two shows but that is the heart of Imaginary Mary- an insecure character like Scrubs. Give it a chance, you will probably be surprised.

I do not usually have much to say about live-action film and TV because I can remember what I see in animation easier, but I will say what I can about this. Imaginary Mary had a very cool and creative idea - a live action-CGI animation hybrid where Alice's imaginary friend returns from her childhood to help her date a divorced dad of three kids. I am disappointed that so many people didn't like this show in its inception. It was nowhere near the worst sitcom I ever saw, but ABC had so little faith in this show that they cut its original 13-episode order down to 9. I think I know why, though. I always liked Imaginary Mary, but one problem I always had with it, one problem that made it hard for me to remember what actually happened in the episodes, was that I can't remember what Mary actually contributed to the plot in each episode. Mary only gets a few scenes in each episode, and every so often she comes up to give Alice some dating advice or other stuff that leads to the conflict or solves it. Mary was funny in most scenes that she had, but now I do not blame ABC for wanting to get rid of this show so quickly if the plots didn't need Mary at all. It is hard to find a good execution for this strange kind of stuff. When the 2015 book The Rest Of Us Just Live Here doesn't know how to make a story about the non-magic kids in a magic world interesting, you realize why no one else does it. Actually, Powerless knew how to make that interesting: by having the DC superheroes or supervillains affect the plots of the "Powerless" people, and that worked out pretty well, so I don't know why that show didn't take off either, but at least I know what makes it better than Imaginary Mary. I do not know where I can find episodes of Imaginary Mary or Powerless nowadays, since it was nearly three years since the last time Imaginary Mary was reviewed here and they are far from the 52-episode syndication minimum, but I really would love to see both of them again to see if they are worthy of becoming a cult classic. Speaking of cult classics, I am very sorry Freaks and Geeks did not work out for NBC. Trying to be a full-hour drama with a comedic setup did not mix.

The show is OK, but nothing Mary does or says anymore is funny. Most of her lines these days are like "way to go!" or "woo who!" - what would make the show great is if Mary was a total nutcase and made Alice's life a living hell.

There are funny moments that come from the interaction between Alice and the family though.

My girl Jenna Elfman is back again this time in a new series for "ABC" called "Imaginary Mary" and it's very funny and different and for sure it's a sexy eye candy treat since it has Jenna Elfman in it! All of us can relate to having an imaginary friend from our childhood days, only with this series the little friend comes back to life and follows this sexy adult woman around in life to help her make choices. Jenna Elfman is Alice a workaholic sports public relations director who finally meets a guy of interest named Ben(Steve Schneider)who's a single father and how will Alice balance it all, well her little blue friend gives her advice on dealing with kids and having intimacy! Only it's seems that the little creature is a troublemaker! Still plenty of fun is had as Alice is one sexy colored bra wearing modern girl(Jenna Elfman rocks she's so sexy and cute). Overall good fun little series to watch that teaches life, while it takes things carefree and of course watch it for Jenna Elfman!