Wednesday, August 4, 2010

An Interesting Review Of The Drew Carey TV Series

By Brian Bonner

The most important and innovative television series of the nineties was, without a doubt, Seinfeld. However, Drew Carey deserves recognition, as well, as one of the more innovative and inventive shows of that decade. People don't always name it as one of the most innovative series of all time, but in its own way, it was every bit as important to the development and evolution of the American sitcom as Seinfeld and The Simpsons had been. Without Drew Carey, Family Guy might not have grown into such an absurd show in its later seasons. It really changed how people regard and judge the modern sitcom, and it definitely belongs on your list of downloads the next time you log into your movie download service.

The show was really just meant as a vehicle to get Drew Carey's face out there back in the era where every comedian really just wanted to be a TV star, and it could have been just another sitcom with just another comedian starring, but they managed to really take it in a different direction, starting with the subject of the show.

Like Seinfeld, the show abandoned the idea of formulaic plots to take things in its own direction, focusing on a man who is always on the verge of a mid-life crisis and who experiences real existential dread at his situation in life, what it all means and whether or not he'd be happier if he'd just leap off a bridge and end it all already.

The show also made a lot of artistic strides as a sitcom, such as the "World Keeps Turning" intro, the live episodes and various other tricks they used to keep the show fresh.

By the end of the series, Carey was making something like a million dollars an episode but, sadly, the ratings were starting to drop and the show had to be canceled, even though it did garner a loyal following who would always make sure that they were at home after work in time to watch it.

The most refreshing thing about the show really was that its focus wasn't on the same thing as every other show. No football widow jokes, no stories about the son borrowing the car without asking. The characters are easier to relate to because they don't feel like generic television characters.

The show serves as an acknowledgement that mom, dad and the kids aren't the only people in the universe, that there are many definitions for the word family, and that the relationships between a man and his friends is every bit as important and valid as the relationship between a man and his wife and his children.

And of course, it's funny. Lewis and Oswald may well be the second and third funniest comic relief characters of the nineties, after Cosmo Kramer, of course. It's always fun when a show that's already a comedy features comic relief characters. Fourth place, of course, goes to Zoidberg, of Futurama.

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