My Big Fat Greek Life

A classic blunder, executives see how wildly successful the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" was, and they immediately work up plans for a TV series, hoping to capitalize on the film's success. But what happens instead is taking something that turned out great, and mercilessly beating it to death, trying to squeeze every last penny out of it.

The movie was great, but the sit-com sucks. The movie was full of funny characters, and the humor was very spontaneous. The characters didn't have to try to be funny, because they were just funny anyway. They seemed very genuine in the film, but in the pilot episode of the series, everything seemed so forced. The jokes and one-liners were poorly written and poorly delivered.

Furthermore, the chemistry between Ian and Toula in the film was very convincing; Ian was very charming and Toula was very loving. I thought that both Nia Vardalos and John Corbett did a great job. In the show, however, the replacement Ian (called "Thomas" in the show) was a total putz, I didn't like him at all, and he had almost no chemistry with Toula (or "Nia", rather). In the film, Ian was very accepting and even enthusiastic to espouse the Portokalos family traditions. But in the show, he bitches to Nia about "boundaries" and bickers with Gus about who built Stonehenge.

The only character that was almost tolerable on the show was Gus, the dad. They overdid his dialogue a bit, but he's still funny to watch.

"My Big Fat Greek Wedding" was a great movie, it was relatively inexpensive to produce and made lots of money, and people loved it. And I'm sure many DVDs and VHS tapes will be sold. I already have the DVD. "My Big Fat Greek Life", on the other hand, is just a bad idea; the movie was a great movie and let's just leave it at that, don't corrupt its legacy with a cornball sit-com.

I loved the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but the TV show was not as good as I expected. I started seeing it but did not finish it, it has 1 or 2 good laughs but the rest of the show literally stinks. First of all, the names change and you get confused. Second of all, the story does not follow the movie. And third, there are no laughs, Ian, or as he is called in the show, Thomas, is a really bad actor, no talent at all, he is also not funny. It seems as they are beging for some funny moments, but they try to hard. I gave it a 2 out of 10.

Why do they have to take a relatively funny, and successful movie and turn it into "How many one lines can we get in in one show"? They ought to be ashamed of themselves. Most of the cast are lowering the bar quite a bit by just lending themselves to this dribble.

Well, looks like Nia's Big Fat Greek Life is 'history' -- too bad.

Years ago, it was fairly common for a well received Film to move over to TV. MASH is the most notable. It was considered by many to be quite lame in its initial effort, but with time ... yes, you know the rest of THAT story.

Big Fat Greek Life could have achieved a status on par with Wedding. But it needed time to find its rhythm. And, reading between the lines of how TV operates, can imagine that Nia was handcuffed by the 'experts' in details of the show (i.e. - laugh track). She should have been left alone to develop the show in same way she was left alone to develop the Film (where's Tom Hanks when you need him ? ;-)

If some 'expert' had some patience, we may have been treated to a weekly, wonderful, eclectic view of America that is needed in our Land of McDonalds, Malls, Bimbo Blondes, and ignorant TV experts ... and TO those "experts" - what's the basic definition of Tragedy and Comedy ? (k, uncle ? ... alrighty, if YOU are a TV 'executive/expert' don't peek -- Comedy is something 'good' happening to someone who doesn't 'deserve' it ... Tragedy is something 'bad' happening to someone who doesn't 'deserve' it)

Thank You Nia ... you WILL be missed

ps - but it'll be ok in the long run ... just imagine, we'll only need to wait another 2500 years for the NEXT installment from the folks who invented Theater ... patience, patience

I just watched the first episode of this show and it would seem that this family is cooking up something other than lamb for a change...try turkey! What worked wonderfully on the silver screen is very uncomfortable and amateurish in the context of a half hour sit-com. Emeril was probably better than this. The studio audience must not understand english because if they did they wouldn't be laughing. This TV show is to My Big Fat Greek Wedding fans what Jar Jar Binks is to fans of the original Star Wars.