Bette

I really like Bette Midler. I was excited that she was going to have a tv series. But........

Every episode had Bette coming on like gangbusters claiming "i'm a diva, aren't I too much! Then her husband would come out and claim, "Bette your too much." Folllowed by Joanna Gleason, the gay personal assisant, her daughter and assorted guest stars claiming, "Bette calm down, you're too much." How can any other character be happy with lines like this!

Then Bette would be too much. No one else was allowed to be funny -or have a joke. It was as if the writers were afraid to develop others characters or God forbid--throw them a joke. I wish stars who go on tv wouldn't be afraid of being an ensemble. Only ensemble shows survive. Rosanne had one! Mary Tyler Moore had one. The Golden Girls had one! Hopefullly Bette learned to save her divaism for her concerts. Sit-Coms don't work that way.

I, at first, thought a TV series with Bette Midler would be a great idea. I'm a big fan of hers and she has shown some great comedic talent in her movies. Unfortunately this was horrid! This show is infamous for all the behind the camera battles. From what was reported, Midler was a control freak and drove everybody crazy. Kevin Dunn (who played her husband) went head to head with her a few times--he was fired and replaced with Robert Hays. The scripts were (to be kind) unfunny and even Midler was bad! She's over the top all the time and runs around and screeches out every line. The entire cast basically seemed afraid to try and stop her--Dunn did and look what happened to him. The only one who comes through is Joanna Gleason who plays it quiet and calm--a welcome reprieve from Midler's dramatics.

This show didn't last long--I don't even think it played out a full season. It's mostly been forgotten and should stay that way. Even Midler has bad mouthed this!

The first fall TV hit of 2000 happens to be the perfect vehicle for Bette Midler since she plays herself ala Jerry Seinfeld. It's well written, well acted and she has an outstanding supporting cast including Joanna Gleason as her best friend and manager Connie. Even though the show runs opposite "Millionaire", "Bette" could be the final answer to compete with Regis. A very funny show! I hope (to borrow a quote from another hit Wednesday CBS show from this year) it doesn't get "voted off the island." The best CBS sitcom on Wednesday night since "The Nanny."

Bette Midler's new series "Bette" sets new records in the field of horrible situation comedies. The plots and gags here are nothing new AT ALL! What makes this unique, though? There are many bad sitcoms. I mean, the entire genre has turned into one big over-used cliche. But even people who like sitcoms have to be turned off by this. Bette Midler plays herself, which means, you guessed it - 30 minutes of shameless self-promotion, sometimes disguised as thin self-satire but all the same. That, and Bette Midler painfully over-acts as she makes corny jokes and stumbles through these predictable plot devices.

Bette's star power may save it from as quick a cancellation it obviously deserves, but the half-hour laugh-track laden comedy doesn't get much worse than this.

This show represents everything that is wrong with some sit-coms. It appears that television executives, unable to come up with an original idea, constantly fall back on "celebrities" such as Midler, as the end of their career. Since they are at the end of their career, they are more willing to do the lowly sit-com (see: Gena Davis). Unfortunately, the shows most often have the supporting characters orbiting around the star, Midler, feeding her opportunities to drop her "funny" lines. If the supporting characters do have a joke, it is only meant as a set-up to Midler "sassier" line. With these sit-coms, Midler and Davis, the lead actor appears to have distaste for the genre of situation-comedy, and judging from the writing, the writers have the same distaste. Moreover, the t.v. execs must have a lowly opinion of the genre to assume that an ex-movie actress automatically equals television gold. This is only validated when Emmy judges, seeing the ex-movie star (Midler) doing the lowly sit-com, assumes she must be so much more talented than other actresses on other sit-coms who did not have the same movie career (Heaton, Louis-Dryfus, etc.) Seinfeld offers the best cure for this disease, when the huge comedy star (Seinfeld) had a show, but rather than having all the actors orbiting around him, he gave them the funniest lines. The result: perhaps the television show ever. Hopefully people have learned, and such tragedies as "Bette" will never be allowed to happen again.