Didn't know this was made. Spectrum Cable exclusive. Watched first couple episodes, entertaining and in pace with the MaY you humor and vibe. MaY was probably the "lesser" of the NBC Thursday sitcoms that had longevity, but usually a good watch.
Saw the first episode and thought it was kind of cute. I was never really into Mad About You during its original NBC run, but I caught a few episodes here and there and thought it was a decent show that I'd probably watch more if I had more time to. From what I saw of the first episode on Spectrum, the show hasn't missed a beat since leaving NBC and Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt are like they've been there all the time.
Yeah, just finished it. They haven't missed a step. Now instead about a married couple settling down in their lives it's about empty-nesters trying to find the marriage with the kid out of the house.
There will be 6 more episodes on December 12th I think. The show to me was always just there. I watched the pilot from the 90sand it was just there. I didn't think it was that great.
Yeah, I don't have Spectrum Cable where I live, so I watched this batch of episodes while at the parents for Thanksgiving, will watch the next batch when I'm down there for Christmas. I guess for me largely the show was "just there" too, I liked it, it was funny and stuff and it was just part of the unbeatable "NBC Thursdays" line up that mostly owed its unbeatablity to Friends and Seinfeld but Mad About You was the other sit com of that two-hour block (as I recall the third hour was ER) that was the other power house and the fourth episode, usually on after Seinfeld at 8:30 was the "time slot hit" but was never really anything that stayed too strong. There were a series of those shows, Caroline in the City (which may have been the strongest one) and The Single Guy being the two I remember most. So I've not seen every episode of Mad About You and of the episodes I've seen, it was probably only once or twice. It was a show I liked because Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt were funny and just the interaction between Reiser and Hunt was always great, but for me Seinfeld and Friends were the "must see" shows. That said, this "revival" is entertaining enough and does a good job of keeping the spirit I remember from the original show.
I hope they find a guest spot for Lisa Kudrow as Ursula. She had a recurring role on the original show when she got hired for the role of Phoebe on Friends. She liked the character and didn't want to leave the show permanently (and she was unsure whether or not Friends would make it) so they turned Ursula into Phoebe's twin sister. Ursula then got more play on Friends than she ever did on Mad About You.
I HATE Friends. I mean really loathe it that people try to compare it to Seinfeld. Mad About You is the show no one ever really talked about and 20 years later no one really remembers any episodes. I feel Friends is the show no one ever shuts up about, but also no one remembers any episodes of, just like a scene. Smelly cat...
I was thinking the same thing, was hoping Ursula would show up at some point. It's understandable for you to not like friends. Loathe it? Ehhh, seems a bit extreme, but whatever. I think the reason why people remember it and Seinfeld more than MAY is probably just the kind of humor, characters and just the overall stories they did. Friends was about a bunch of snarky/quirky 20-somethings living in the city, Seinfeld a bunch of self-centered asshole sociopaths trying to be human beings. Mad About You? A married couple being married which is pretty much every sit-com ever made. Yeah, it was entertaining and funny but there wasn't a whole lot about it that made the premise or the characters stand out above the fold and probably the only reason why it did so well and is remembered at all (as opposed to The Single Guy, Caroline in the City or whatever other fourth show they went through on NBC Thursdays) is because of the cast. I'm not sure why it hasn't caught a Second Wind like Seinfeld, and more so Friends, have with present-day audiences. Is it even available to watch anywhere? (I think I saw it's on Spectrum's streaming service, but that's hardly much.) I think largely it's just the premise just doesn't appeal to young audiences and didn't much back then. Thinking of an episode of Mad About You that for some reason always sticks in my mind: 5x19 (April 15, 1997): "The Touching Game" In this episode a pregnant Jamie is struggling with handling her pregnancy weight and doesn't think Paul is sympathetic towards it, so he goes out and to try and find that in him befriends a woman on a bus who he thinks is pregnant and it turned out to just be a fat man who sort of dresses fairly femininely. (It was like a floral-y shirt, and just his overall look and behavior was pretty much "Pat" from the SNL skits of the time.) That same night: (Okay, looking into this appears to be a period where MAY is no longer in the Thursday night line up with Seinfeld and Friends, this week on Thursdays it was Friends, The Single Guy/Suddenly Susan, Seinfeld and Caroline in the City.) So that same week when it comes to NBC's "Must See" sit coms: Friends: 3x21 "The One With the Chick and the Duck." (April 17, 1997) Joey and Chandler adopt a chick and duck, Ross is set to appear on a Discovery Channel program that night but ends up helping an injured Rachel out (the two had recently had their major break-up and were starting to more or less operate as friends again), Monica is still trying to find her vibes for man (a rich computer company entrepreneur played by John Faverau) As Friends episodes go, it's an okay one. Probably the most memorable element of it is the introduction of the Chick and the Duck who'll make regular appearances and Joey as Chandler's "pets" over the next couple seasons and even spawn an interesting "shake up" in the dynamic of the show when it causes J/C and M/R to switch apartments, and it deals with an element of the Ross/Rachel thing. Seineld apparently wasn't new this week but we'll look at the week before, I guess. Seinfeld 8x18 "The Nap" (April 11, 1997): George, needing a way to get over the mid-day hump at work, has a napping chamber built under his desk, Jerry's getting remodeling work done in his kitchen which unsettles everyone, Kramer has taken up swimming in the East River, and Elaine is dating a man concerned about back issues and buys Elaine a new mattress. She thinks its because he intends to sleep with her on it. As Seinfeld episodes go it's probably on of the more memorable ones. Not quite on the level of The Soup Nazi or something but there's plenty of memory and funny moments in it. I mean those are very different sets of stories. You have a bunch of friends just dealing with or in awkward or quirky situations that no normal person would find themselves in and then you've got a guy trying to find a way to relate to his pregnant wife. Mad About You is funny and that was a funny episode, but it's also just a very "ordinary" episode in terms of the story it wants to tell.
On another front, I guess the revival here us one of the ones ignoring parts of the final season/episodes of the original like Will and Grace and Rosanne did. I never watched W&G but I heard for its revival they had to ignore some "flash forward" elements from the final episode and Rosanne has to ignore it's entire last season. ( Which IIRC was a "dream" but the revival had to ignore the death of Dan between the penultimate season and final season.) MAY's final episode had a flash forward to a couple years from now with Jamie and Paul divorced and their grad-school daughter scheming to get them back together. Considering their daughter is just now entering college (arguably a couple years late) and audiences wouldn't like seeing a divorced Jamie/Paul I suppose that flash forward from the final episode is being ignored.
I think this is why I LOATHE Friends, it wasn't popular around me growing up. It became popular to people who have no personality of their own. Seinfeld was popular when it was on, it's popular today. Friends was popular when it was on to a point, but it has EXPLODED and the stories just aren't good. I'm a snarky person, I should relate to Friends. I just can't. Seinfeld is popular because you can feel for the characters, they express our hidden asshole. It's outragous, yet somehow grounded in life. As I've gotten older at random times I just go 'This is a god damn Seinfeld episode'. So I guess my problem with Friends is more that it's popular today with people I can't stand. But I find it stupid, boring and horribly written. I find Mad About You boring, a revival is weird, but at least they feel like a married couple, even though I don't like Paul Reiser all that much, or his character. I think we have highly over analyzed 90s sitcoms. Oddly enough I will be buying the Friends LEGO set when it becomes cheaper.
Lego sets becoming cheaper. Seinfeld was more "my" sitcom but I also loved Friends. I think Seinfeld hasn't gotten the new popularity Friends has BECAUSE the characters are assholes. The "SJW" mentality of today's youth probably just can't see the humor in that.
Seinfeld was always popular and stayed popular, at least in my age range. But Friends wasn't and now it's like "I was always a super fan!" And the Friends set is 20% off starting Sunday at Walmart. The Disney Train / Station is 30% off today. They do go on sale, very often in fact. So often that LEGO is making all the sets pricing higher so with a 20% discount they will be the current prices. Like the current X-Wing is $80, currently on sale for $50. However the 2020 XWing is a different color and will be $100.
I read this thread title and just thought "why?" But then I thought "Hey that show was ok" and then I saw it was on some platform that I'm not even going to try and find, so bye bye Mad About You. If you're going to revisit another 90's show, make it Wings or Major Dad, then I might tune in.
I lived on Nantucket, I can't stand Wing now because of how fictional the town/island is. Just really pulls me away.
Yeah, the platform it's on is.... Unusual. Apparently we're doing cable-company specific series now. (For those not "in the know" the MAY "revival" is only available through Spectrum Cable's OnDemand service.) I'd really like to see a Wings "revival" too as it was favorite of mine back then. But I don't think it was nearly popular enough to warrant such a thing.
It really is where everything is kinda headed these days with various shows exclusive to certain platforms. Spectrum is merely the latest to get into the exclusive content game, but it's unlikely to be the last.
I loathe Friends too. I don't know why, I just hate it, and I don't care about these characters at all. And both Friends and Seinfeld are uber-unrealistic. They show a NYC that is almost 100% white. And I don't know how any of these people in Friends can afford those huge apartments. (Speaking of which, the apartment in 'Two Broke Girls" is bigger than most houses that I have lived in! Broke my ass...) I used to watch Mad About You when it was first on with my SO abut the time we were engaged and got married. It was fun to watch when the kid finally went to sleep. But I don't have any real compulsion to revisit it.
I loved MaY when it originally aired, probably because we were newly married, so it ticked a lot of boxes with where we were in life. It was a nice way to spend a half hour. I'm very bummed that the revival is only on Spectrum, so I'm hoping that it eventually (soon) drops to Netflix/Hulu/one of them.