With about half of marriages in America ending in divorce, it's no wonder so many television shows reflect this staggering statistic.
Now there’s another broken marriage to poke fun at with the new CBS sitcom "Gary Unmarried," which premieres Wednesday, Sept. 24, at 7:30 p.m. Gary, played by Jay Mohr, is a painting contractor who finds himself a bachelor again after 15 years of marriage now juggling his responsibilities as a dad and keeping a platonic relationship with his ex-wife, Allison (Paula Marshall). She barges in his house and immediately nags him about the contents of his refrigerator and who gets the kids on which weekend. He has to learn how to deal with two awkward teenagers – his son, Tom (Ryan Malgarini) who only talks to girls online and his daughter, Louise (Kathryn Newton) who hangs pictures of Al Gore and Mahatma Gandhi on her walls.
He complicates matters further when he meets Vanessa (Jaime King), a beautiful woman who hires him for a paint job, but then he ends up taking his work home with him. He is apprehensive to tell Allison about his new love interest until he learns their marriage counselor, Dr. Walter Krandall (Ed Begley, Jr.), is engaged to his ex and tries to give him love advice. Gary is trying to move from his old life into his new one as his relationships are all changing.
Mohr depicts the blue-collar everyman with ease, the jovial guy’s guy whose refrigerator is stocked with beer and little else, sees himself as the cool dad and doesn’t bother to read his therapist’s book “Rules for the Perfect Divorce.” When Allison nags him about Tom’s fear of talking to girls, Mohr delivers a simple yet explicatory response of Gary’s feelings by saying, “He should be afraid of girls. They pretend to like you and then they take all of your stuff!”
Marshall’s portrayal as a nagging ex-wife and self-righteous mom are enough to annoy more than Gary with her bossy demands and strange “juice cleanses” she gives her kids, but she’s rendering the typical role of an ex-wife who thinks she knows better. The report between Marshall and Mohr as ex-husband and wife is a series of zingers that dart back and forth so quickly that although are mostly funny almost seem too scripted and expected. When Allison gives a fleeting remark of, “Bye kids, have fun with your dad; I never did!” it seems more like a cheap shot than a clever quip.
“Gary Unmarried” is directed by comedy veteran James Burrows who worked on such sitcom sensations as “Friends,” “Will & Grace,” “Fraiser,” and “Cheers” to name a few, but “Unmarried isn’t on the level of these comedies because it’s too predictable. While the show aims to throw us into what’s going on the way Gary is thrown into his own situation, the pilot leaves little room to wonder what’s next. Everyone assumes ex-husband and wives bicker, raising children as a single parent is complicated, and reentering the world of dating after divorce is daunting and intimidating, and the show doesn’t bring anything new to the table. Ultimately, “Unmarried” is just another comedy about divorce.
Watch CBS Videos Online
Edited 9/22/08 7:41 a.m.
No comments:
Post a Comment