Rude Awakening

This series is an "ORIGINAL SERIES" in every sense of the word. I must agree with David Lynch's quote "Sherilyn Fenn is five feet of heaven in a ponytail". Sherilyn is a captivating actress, no one else could have embodied Billie Frank's Character. Redgrave & Fenn are electrifying! Their chemistry creates a hilarious comedy of great proportions. These three seasons of "Rude Awakening" need to be released on on DVD! It's a must!

This is, in my opinion, Showtime's best show. Its not fake and completely unreal like so many other television shows. The topic they are dealing with is real and they are showing what alcoholism is really like and, that you can overcome your addiction.

They also show the other side of alcoholism; the addiction and dependency on the alcohol which is wonderfully played by Lynn Redgrave. Trudy Frank (Lynn) is a hilarious drunk who loves young men and sex. Lynn alone adds a bit of class to this wonderfully frank show, even though her character is anything but the perfect mother.

Jonathon Penner is also excellent as Dave, who owns a coffee shop and is a recovering alcoholic himself. Mario VanPeebles is also featured.

Perhaps one of the most "difficult" television series to ever make it into production, Showtime's "Rude Awakening" is worth the effort it takes to warm up to a cast of flawed, occasionally unlikable, and all-too-human characters.

The material is a look at addiction, sex, and dysfunctional families, filtered through a sitcom sensibility. Sherilyn Fenn's Billie Frank is habitually self-destructive, with a gift for making the wrong choice at every given opportunity, and most of the addiction, sex, and dysfunction revolves around her.

What makes Billie a watchable, sympathetic creation is her ability to spot her own culpability in her failures, and her sputtering, stuttering romance with Jonathan Penner's Dave. Penner gets a lot of mileage out of the show's thinnest major character, the owner of a coffee shop and the person who helped guide Billie into a 12-step program, but his function is mostly just to stand around and trade hyper-sexual barbs with Fenn.

Lynn Redgrave, on the other hand, is in full diva mode with Trudy, Bille's mother. And it is indeed a sight to behold; intensely, bitingly funny, cruel, and relentlessly self-involved, Trudy is a work of art. Unlike her daughter, Redgrave's character has no saving grace, but somehow remains the most compelling thing on the screen at any given moment.

Without question, RA's run has been uneven. When it wanders away from its central themes, the show can easily begin to look like the most painful sort of cable comedy, with little more than explicit language but like its main character, when "Rude Awakening" finds its feet and takes a clear-eyed look at where it is and where it hopes to go, it can make for a funny, intense half-hour of entertainment.

this was a great show... I think of it with relation to REAL life experiences. Hope to see it on air again. VERY good show. It could even be thought of as a session in therapy for anyone who actually has some of the issues addressed in the episodes. Or it can be seen as a way to understand friends with these same problems. Love, life, family, drinking,drugs... real life problems. The last episode did get to my senses... and I cried. The acting was superb... the writing was original... Why did the producers take this show off the air. I wonder if the censors disapproved. It's heart-warming to see real life reenacted through TV. I like not having to go to live theater to have this experience. In fact, shows like "Rent" are allowing more audiences to see another 'real life' experience by showing the story in a film.

This show is so refreshing and funny, I couldn't believe it could survive the prevailing tastes of American TV executives. Trawling the channels late at night, I stumbled upon Sherilyn Fenn's gorgeous face looking at me and found that she could make me laugh as well! This show doesn't look polished, it does not have contrived plots or even high production values, but what it does have, is great laughs, realistic situations, and just all around funny stuff. It is crass, rude and sexy, and it doesn't apologize for it. And it shouldn't, in this time of over political correctness and subsequent fear of offending anyone, this show doesn't care, and in the process, provides great entertainment.