Men of a Certain Age

by: pageian

TNT has a new series out called "Men of a Certain Age" featuring Ray Ramano.  It's not a comedy, rather it's a drama, or even more precisely a dramadey.  It's not specifically setup for humor but it does have it's humorous moments, the main draw of the show however is the relationship between three middle aged men, their careers and families.  Scott Bakula and Andre Braugher are the other two main characters in the show.

TNT seems to have a hit on their hands, along the lines of other off-network shows such as "Mad Men", though it's hard to imagine this show matching the heights "Mad Men" has found.  The show is set in LA with Ramano as the lead character, owner of a party store, divorced and with a gambling problem.  Bakula plays an actor who rarely has acting jobs and apparently has a peter-pan complex, refusing to grow up and take on the responsibilities of a normal adult.  Braugher is perhaps the most complex character of the three.  He plays a car salesman working at his fathers dealership, married to a loving and strong willed wife played by Lisa Gay Hamilton.  Their house is undergoing renovations and causing all kinds of problems for the family.  He struggles at the car dealership due to the fact that his father is particularly tough on him and he often has trouble with the realities of a job that doesn't fulfill him. 

Similar to "Mad Men" much of the appeal of MoaCA is made up of it's ambiance.  There's rarely any action or suspense on the show but it still manages to be extremely interesting and watchable.  Often times there will be scenes where characters don't talk but are shown doing normal, everyday things like waking up or driving to work.  Most plots revolve around the three main characters dealing with everyday things that we all go through in our lives.  Instead of inventing fantastical plots or unbelievable storylines every week MoaCA instead focuses on real things and delves into them on a level that is intended to develop the characters and explain to the audience what their motivations are for doing what they do.  It's an interesting concept, one that's certainly been done before but perhaps not as well.

Credit needs to be given to the writers of the show as well as the concept of it.  Often times what the characters say is not as important as how they say it or why.  You get the feeling watching the show that it was really well thought out, as if the concept and design of the show came first, the thoughts and meaning that it wanted to convey, and then the actual dialogue was added later in order to achieve those goals. 

Credit also needs to be given to the actors and actresses.  I've been critical of Scott Bakula in the past for his acting but in this show he does well, giving convincing performances.  Also, who knew Ray Ramano was such a good actor?  During his time on "Everybody Loves Raymond" he certainly grew as an actor and became more comfortable with what he was doing though you never got the impression that he felt he was an actor, never got the impression that he felt he belonged on the set with the likes of Brad Garrett, Patricia Heaton, Peter Boyle and Doris Roberts.  All that seems to be gone here though, Ramano gives perhaps the best performance on the show, he's believable and his acting really does a good job of portraying exactly what his character is going through.  He seems like a genuine human being.  Braugher also does an excellent job.  As mentioned earlier, his character has potentially the most complicated situations and Braugher, similar to Ramano, portrays perfectly his characters emotions and motivations.  You really get the feeling that he's just a human being, it's easy to forget that these guys are actors playing parts.  You don't need to suspend reality in order to believe what the characters are going through, it's all done so naturally that you might think that they're actually real people who your following through a camera.

"Men of a Certain Age" appears to be poised for a run of many seasons if the actors and creators are willing to follow through.  Ramano has said that it was his choice that the first season would have 10 episodes so it's apparent that things are relatively under his control so unless TNT decides to pull the plug for some reason then it would seem that the show will continue for as long as Ramano and his fellow actors and producers are interested.  Let's hope they stay interested and continue their creative and enjoyable show.

Sitcom Review: George Lopez

Sitcom Review:  George Lopez
by: pageian

George Lopez was an American sitcom which ran for six seasons between March 2002 and May 2007.  The Show featured comedian George Lopez, an outspoken Mexican American comedian.  The show was losely based on Lopez's comedy similar to how other comedians shows were premised, such as Seinfeld and Everybody Loves Raymond.  The show revolves around George's family, his wife Angie, played by Constance Marie, his daughter Carmen, played by Masiela Lusha, his son Max, played by Luis Armand Garcia, his father-in-law Vic, played by Emiliano Díez, his mother Benny, played by Belita Moreno and his friend Ernie, played by Valente Rodriguez.  Another major set piece of the show revolves around George's job as manager of a factory that produces aircraft landing gear.

Major themes throughout the show are George's adversarial relationship and poor upbringing by his mother Benny, who is a heavy drinker and smoker and often goes out of her way to not show affection.  George also has a learning disability, dyslexia, that has been passed on to his son Max which makes it difficult for him to succeed in school and also causes problems for George at his job.  Other themes revolve around Carmen's behavior, boyfriends and private school, Angie's job as a cosmetics sales woman and later as a wedding planner and George's dimwitted friend Ernie being taken advantage of by women and his parents.  Multiple episodes are also devoted to Georges search for his biological father and later on his relationship with his fathers family.

There's nothing groundbreaking or earth shattering about the show.  Most of the episode plots have been done before, and perhaps better, by other sitcoms.  The show tries very hard to appeal to the sentiments of the working man by portraying George as a hard working person who's climbed his way up the corporate ladder to become manager.  The characters seem to always be afraid of losing their jobs, of the plant closing or moving, being bought and taken over by another, large company or having to take pay cuts so that the company can continue to operate without having to sacrifice any jobs.  It's a bit too much and often trite how the aircraft landing gear plant is run, it seemed like every season of the show had two or three episodes that revolved around at least one of the main characters job security or the plants ability to stay in business.  It's done in a manner derivative of '90's sitcoms like "Roseann" and "Grace Under Fire" which tended to focus on the adversity that the common working man goes through trying to stay afloat during hard times.  Those plot devices are hard to buy into at times when the economy is doing well which was the case for all three of the mentioned shows.  Job security and economic hardship would seem to be an easy script to fall back on and implies a lack of creativity from the writers.

You'll rarely find yourself laughing out loud at the jokes in the show.  Most of them are telegraphed well in advance so you know what's coming and aren't very well written to begin with.  Again, it's all been done before.  Most of the characters are over-acted, particularly Benny, Ernie and Vic.  Ernie is the dimwitted comic straight man who's not actually very funny, Benny is a mean spirited firebrand and Vic is a hotblooded Cuban heart surgeon.  All three characters can become particularly annoying if you watch the episodes one after another and see them acted so poorly and to such bad writing.  It all comes off rather amateurish with poorly developed characters and all-to-convenient plot devices.  While watching the show you can't help but think that had the show been better written and directed it could have been so much more than it was.

George Lopez lasted six years and that was perhaps a couple years too long.  The ratings dropped every year it was in production yet Lopez himself was surprised and upset when ABC finally pulled the plug in 2007.  To it's credit the show never seemed to "Jump the Shark", a termed used to indicate when a show starts an obvious decline and usually starts attempting unrealistic plots and episodes that don't work without the viewer having to suspend reality in order to buy into what's going on.  It's possible that the show didn't jump the shark simply because the characters were so one dimensional and poorly developed that the unrealistic and convenient plots and episodes where always there from the start. 

In all George Lopez is mildly entertaining if for no other reason than watching it to see how badly written and conceived the show is.  Don't expect many laughs and don't expect to be awed by the acting or writing.  It's pretty safe to go ahead and delete the episodes off of your DVR after you've watched them once without fear that you'll want to go back and watch any of them a second time.