I am really not a fan of the modern sitcom - especially the "family" sitcom. A genre of which Everybody Loves Raymond is a prime example. The formula seems to go somewhere along the lines of find a comedic actor/actress, plop them down in suburbia, give them a few (usually three) interchangeable charmless children, and surround them with colorful family members/friends whose wackiness drives to distraction and viola! instant success.
Everybody Loves Raymond centers on Droopy Dawg-faced Ray Romano as Ray Barone, an Italian-American sadsack semi-happily married to Patricia Heaton and stuck living on the same street as his overbearing family, including dad Peter Boyle, mom Doris Roberts and brother Brad Garrett.
The show does have things going for it. Scratch that - the show has one thing going for it. The trio of supporting performances from Boyle, Roberts and Garrett. These three seem to be the only ones to be aware that they are in a "comedy", are expected to be funny, and rise above the limitations of the mediocre scripts to attempt something better. Garrett looks like he could conceivably be Romano's brother and gives the kind of performance that Romano should be contributing in the lead role. Boyle and Roberts are fun together and playing off the others as well. Roberts, particularly, is good in scenes as the mother-in-law from hell to Heaton's colorless daughter-in-law.
The actors playing the children are instantly forgettable - in fact, the kids are used so sparingly and without thought that they could vanish from the show and no one would notice (or care).
Unfortunately, the show is cursed with leads that are challenged. Romano literally seems to have one facial expression and a voice that could put caffeine into a coma. Listening to his chronic affectless delivery is downright disconcerting enough, but someone should have pulled him aside early on and explained that there is a huge difference between deadpan and deadly dull. Literally, Raymond is almost completely devoid of charisma or personality. The show is truly centered around a lackluster droning sadsack.
Yet oddly, Romano still manages to come off better than his on screen wife. Given that this is a modern comedy, it seems to be the new thing that actresses playing wives/mothers in sitcoms are simply not expected to be or allowed to be funny. The days of Lucille Ball in I Love Lucy, Audrey Meadows in The Honeymooners and Mary Tyler Moore in The Dick Van Dyke Show, where comedic actresses were allowed to be as equally funny as their male counterparts are apparently dead. Heaton gets to play the now all-too-common role of the wife/mother, who is not allowed to be funny because she is too busy acting responsible and being the professional scold. Her entire role is to react to those around her. Ostensibly she is the straight man - if being a straight man required you to be criminally unfunny and annoying. Alas for Heaton, there are too many examples of great straight men/women who manage to be funny in their own right to function as an excuse for what she is doing here. Think Margaret Dumont in the Marx Brothers epics or, more recently, Jane Curtin in Third Rock from the Sun. Heaton's delivery sounds chronically forced and delivered in that mock-acting tone/volume that all too often characterizes bad TV comedies. She is almost diabolically unfunny and actually manages to drain the life from some of her better cast members when sharing a scene. She is such an irritant that we can easily fathom why Ray is such a sadsack and why his family seems to have ambivalent feelings about her below the surface. Failing as both a comedic actress and even a functional straight woman, Heaton manages to be a black hole at the center of this show, often throwing the dull leading man off, and hobbling it from attaining any heights of amusement. Purportedly Heaton did not get along with her co-stars and, if true, it certainly shows on screen. However, that can certainly not be the sole excuse for the kind of crummy acting exhibited by her here, since she has been equally lousy in her subsequent mercifully short-lived comedic pairing with Kelsey Grammar in a show whose title I cannot even remember and in the somehow still-currently-running The Middle.
So I must say that while there are times that I may love Peter Boyle, Brad Garrett and especially Doris Roberts on this show, I most definitely do not love Ray Romano and I think the dreadful Heaton makes Larry the Cable Guy resemble great comic art.
Everybody Loves Raymond centers on Droopy Dawg-faced Ray Romano as Ray Barone, an Italian-American sadsack semi-happily married to Patricia Heaton and stuck living on the same street as his overbearing family, including dad Peter Boyle, mom Doris Roberts and brother Brad Garrett.
The show does have things going for it. Scratch that - the show has one thing going for it. The trio of supporting performances from Boyle, Roberts and Garrett. These three seem to be the only ones to be aware that they are in a "comedy", are expected to be funny, and rise above the limitations of the mediocre scripts to attempt something better. Garrett looks like he could conceivably be Romano's brother and gives the kind of performance that Romano should be contributing in the lead role. Boyle and Roberts are fun together and playing off the others as well. Roberts, particularly, is good in scenes as the mother-in-law from hell to Heaton's colorless daughter-in-law.
The actors playing the children are instantly forgettable - in fact, the kids are used so sparingly and without thought that they could vanish from the show and no one would notice (or care).
Unfortunately, the show is cursed with leads that are challenged. Romano literally seems to have one facial expression and a voice that could put caffeine into a coma. Listening to his chronic affectless delivery is downright disconcerting enough, but someone should have pulled him aside early on and explained that there is a huge difference between deadpan and deadly dull. Literally, Raymond is almost completely devoid of charisma or personality. The show is truly centered around a lackluster droning sadsack.
Yet oddly, Romano still manages to come off better than his on screen wife. Given that this is a modern comedy, it seems to be the new thing that actresses playing wives/mothers in sitcoms are simply not expected to be or allowed to be funny. The days of Lucille Ball in I Love Lucy, Audrey Meadows in The Honeymooners and Mary Tyler Moore in The Dick Van Dyke Show, where comedic actresses were allowed to be as equally funny as their male counterparts are apparently dead. Heaton gets to play the now all-too-common role of the wife/mother, who is not allowed to be funny because she is too busy acting responsible and being the professional scold. Her entire role is to react to those around her. Ostensibly she is the straight man - if being a straight man required you to be criminally unfunny and annoying. Alas for Heaton, there are too many examples of great straight men/women who manage to be funny in their own right to function as an excuse for what she is doing here. Think Margaret Dumont in the Marx Brothers epics or, more recently, Jane Curtin in Third Rock from the Sun. Heaton's delivery sounds chronically forced and delivered in that mock-acting tone/volume that all too often characterizes bad TV comedies. She is almost diabolically unfunny and actually manages to drain the life from some of her better cast members when sharing a scene. She is such an irritant that we can easily fathom why Ray is such a sadsack and why his family seems to have ambivalent feelings about her below the surface. Failing as both a comedic actress and even a functional straight woman, Heaton manages to be a black hole at the center of this show, often throwing the dull leading man off, and hobbling it from attaining any heights of amusement. Purportedly Heaton did not get along with her co-stars and, if true, it certainly shows on screen. However, that can certainly not be the sole excuse for the kind of crummy acting exhibited by her here, since she has been equally lousy in her subsequent mercifully short-lived comedic pairing with Kelsey Grammar in a show whose title I cannot even remember and in the somehow still-currently-running The Middle.
So I must say that while there are times that I may love Peter Boyle, Brad Garrett and especially Doris Roberts on this show, I most definitely do not love Ray Romano and I think the dreadful Heaton makes Larry the Cable Guy resemble great comic art.