Sunday, February 22, 2015

CBS' 'The Odd Couple' remake was just plain bad


I wasn't impressed by the latest remake of The Odd Couple, which premiered last Thursday on CBS. The series, which stars Matthew Perry and Thomas Lennon as Oscar Madison and Felix Unger, was to say the least, not good. Honestly, it felt like sketch comedy after awhile. The writing was recycled, boring and contrived. And the acting? Also pretty bad. Perry and Lennon had previously starred alongside each other in the 2009 comedy film 17 Again, and I was looking forward to seeing them together again. But I guess you can't make magic happen out of a bad script.

This has to be Matthew Perry's fourth new sitcom in which he is the lead star since the conclusion of Friends nearly eleven years ago. So far, one of the four have been good. First was Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip during the 2006-07 season, cancelled after one season. Then came Mr. Sunshine, which aired as a midseason replacement on ABC in 2011. I genuinely enjoyed that one, honestly. Perry starred as the manager of a sports arena, with Allison Janney as his co-star. It was actually funny. The cast had chemistry, which is more then I can say for the ratings. It was cancelled after 9 episodes. Next was Go On on NBC during the 2012-13 season. It starred Perry as a man who joins a grief support group and thereafter followed the group's misadventures. It was good for those who could see the reality in it, but for the rest, it was dull. That too was cancelled after only one season. 

And now comes The Odd Couple. A remake of a classic sitcom from the 70s, and definitely not the first remake, either. There was genuine chemistry between Perry and Lennon (which makes sense), but yet there is nothing unique to the show. When you're remaking a classic, you have to have something memorable. If you don't, why would you want to watch a remake? People can just watch a rerun of the original. Maybe I should give it another episode, and maybe I shouldn't. The contrived writing and overacting (on Perry's part, unfortunately) was a little too much to handle. "This is a mess even Felix can't fix," says Deadline. Catch The Odd Couple Thursdays at 8:30/7:30c on CBS. 

Sunday, February 8, 2015

Sharon loses custody of Faith on 'The Young and the Restless'


There must be some kind of bet in the writing room of The Young and the Restless to see who can cause the most pain and/or destruction to Sharon Newman, portrayed by Sharon Case. And the person who does it must get some sort of salary spike. This week, viewers saw Sharon lose custody of her youngest daughter Faith (Aly Lind), with the judge giving full custody to her anything-but-courteous father Dickolas *cough* Nicholas (Joshua Morrow). Sharon lost. Again. And we weren't shocked.

The destruction of Sharon Newman is nothing new. I suppose we should be directing initial blame toward Maria Arena Bell, former head writer of the top soap. In 2009, she had Sharon sleep with 3 men; ex-hubby Nick (which we were all pretty happy about), then-current hubby Jack (Peter Bergman), and Jack's younger bro Billy (then Billy Miller). Perhaps this was the start of the insipid babbling that Sharon is a slut. Sharon became pregnant (with Nick's baby) and then, Bell gave her kleptomania in which she started stealing from her friends. 2010 was pretty much occupied by her whirlwind relationship with Adam Newman (then Michael Muhney), in which Sharon experienced more out-of-character behavior by sacrificing everything to be with Adam (this, actually, pretty much continued until early 2013). 2011 saw Sharon convicted for the murder of Adam's ex-wife Skye (Laura Stone), who fell into a volcano in Hawaii but Sharon was believed to have pushed her. Not only was she wrongly convicted for murder, she escaped legal custody and was presumed dead when she was carjacked and her car later exploded (the person who stole her car, burned beyond recognition, was believed to be Sharon). Presumed dead and on the run from Genoa City, Sharon found shelter with a loveable ranch hand named Sam (Sean Patrick Flanery). While she was away, Adam worked tirelessly to prove Sharon's innocence, despite her "death". Eventually Sharon was found and returned to prison in Genoa City, just as Adam had found proof that she didn't kill Skye, but when he found out that she had been with Sam, he threw the flash drive that proved Sharon's innocence into a river and let Sharon rot in a jail cell, and later tricked her into a jailhouse wedding only to leave her there looking like a fool. Does this sound like the Sharon you knew and loved? It certainly didn't to me.

But oh, it doesn't end there. It gets a lot worse. After finally being released from prison, Sharon married Victor (Eric Braeden), her ex-father-in-law with whom she always shared a special relationship. The marriage was quickly annulled after Victor was released from prison for a murder he knew he didn't commit, and Sharon reunited with a blind Adam, despite Nick demanding she stay away from him for the sake of their daughter and everything he put her through. Alas, their reunion didn't last long and Sharon started a geunine relationship with Victor, which was universally panned by, well, everyone, and caused a bunch of controversy. Before long, they were married. Again. Then came the straw that broke the camel's back. Victor later went missing and Sharon jealously thought he was abandoning her. She burned their prenup, and decided to take over Newman Enterprises. Not only did she take it over, she started plotting with Tucker McCall (Stephen Nichols), who was really just playing her to buy up stock from the company. Victor was eventually presumed dead and Sharon planned on marrying Tucker at Victor's funeral, shocking all of the Newman family, but Victor returned in time to stop it all. Victor annulled the marriage and took back his company, only to find out Jack had bought up enough stock to take over as CEO. Sharon was shunned by the entire town, had a breakdown and burned down the Newman ranch. Adam saved her from another conviction by getting her the help she needed, leading to her diagnosis with bipolar disorder.

Things started to look up from there...we thought. Sharon's airtime decreased and she basically became Adam's sex toy again after his divorce from Chelsea (Melissa Claire Egan). Then she was chem tested with Dylan (Steve Burton), which was nothing but a dead end. But then began the dark times that basically have continued to this day. Sharon became obsessed with winning Nick back, who at the time was engaged to Avery (Jessica Collins). At the time, Nick revealed that 18 soap opera-ized years ago, he lied about daughter Summer's (Hunter King) paternity. A second test revealed that Jack was in fact her father...or so we thought. Sharon got a hold of this second test and tampered with it; she thought that making Jack the father would give her and Nick back the life they used to share. Phyllis (then Michelle Stafford) learned Sharon's secret, but she fell down a flight of stairs and into a coma while trying to stop her. This mess went on for over a year; a year which saw Nick and Sharon get back together and Sharon finding out she has a long-lost daughter, Mariah (Camryn Grimes). Victor, however, spent this year trying to find out Sharon's secret, taking some pretty drastic mesaures which included giving Phyllis a special treatment to help her out of the coma. She eventually woke up and returned to Genoa City, crashing Nick and Sharon's wedding and later revealing Sharon's dark secret (which she forgot; after a serious breakdown, Sharon received electro-shock therapy and lost her memory). After Nick learned the truth, he too shunned Sharon and therefore sued her for sole custody of daughter Faith. Nowhere is it mentioned that Nick lied for 18 "years" about the fact that there was a possibility Summer could have never been his daughter.

Long story short... Sharon continues to be a scapegoat; despite the fact that she was geuninely ill while she tampered with Summer's paternity test, had electro-shock therapy to help heal herself for Nick. Nick, the man who slept with the mental patient who repeatedly told him she had a devastating secret she tried ever so hard to remember to avoid hurting him. All this to say, isn't it time for Sharon to move on from the B.S. of the Newman family? Sure, Sharon burned down the iconic Newman ranch but hell if I were in her shoes a lot worse would've went down, trust me. It's only February, so I don't think it would be too much to ask if Sharon could get her own independent story away from the Newmans in 2015. It's time for her to move on. Seriously. Time for her to move, the hell, ON. Catch Y&R weekdays on CBS.