Watched it a couple of times but the bitterness overwhelmed the comedy.
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Water is wet.
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the show ok. good i can turn that off, it is very meh but it is based on ray ramano's comedy. I shudder to think of him on stange and who thought it was funny. You add te other people, ok i get it, but if it was just him on stage...it took some good casting to get that to be a hit, good vision.
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if you can catch a couple of shows that have fred willard and chris elliot....those are going to be win while they are on screen
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It's not good. It always seemed to me like it came along when there was sort of a void in decent sitcoms. Like, people didn't watch it because it was good, but because it was just decent enough to be better than other stuff at the same time. It was definitely repetitive.
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It's crap.
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I was never really a fan. and I'll agree that it came along when there were really no other decent shows on there to show how shitty it was in contrast.
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I've seen every episode.

His mother and father are hilarious. So is his brother.

And it has a MILF.

I loved it.
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It's pretty much a conventional sitcom, with just a notch above average writing and timing.

It's central conceit is that this is supposed to be a close knit family, but each person has qualities that make them get on each of the other family members' nerves. And the 'plots' revolve around how those qualities get picked at and picked at until they're all at each others' throats.

Ray is inconsiderate to Brenda, condescending to his brother, and a momma's boy. The dad is a slob to Doris, and a coot to everyone else. Brenda is shrill to Raymond and a son usurper to Doris. Doris has to the head of everything, and is the woman who always thwarts Brenda's efforts to better Ray. and so on.

I'd guess the amount of humor you find in that is primarily how much you can identify with or directly recall the same sorts of situations in your own family dynamic, with a decent portion of how much you find humor in the misery of others.

Perhaps one of the funniest examples was when Debra is trying to become a better cook, and swallows her pride and asks Marie for cooking tips. Marie plays nice and shares her family secret recipes, and everyone's impressed that Marie is playing so nice with the scorned daughter in law. But then Brenda's recipes don't have the pop of Marie's, even after all her help. And Marie is triumphant. That is, until Brenda takes a little closer look at the spices she used. Turns out Marie had gone to the trouble of relabeling Brenda's entire spice rack so she would fail even though [or because] Brenda followed the recipe scrupulously.
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Brenda was pretty crazy that way
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It made two and a half men and king of queens look good.
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I appreciate the commentary, BL, as we tend to have similar takes on TV (although yours seem much more informed). I suppose part of the problem is that I can't identify with the characters. Ray likes to play golf, often at the expense of responsibilities to his wife and children. Granted, I know people like that, but it still isn't funny; it's sad. The mother's Aunt Bee-like arrogance (probably a bad comparison, but I disliked her in much the same way) is similarly aggravating. As previously noted, I liked the Deborah and Robert characters the best, but that isn't saying much.

Peter Boyle was far too talented to be in that cast.
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Two more shows I don't care to watch. King of Queens is ok, if for no other reason than Patton Oswalt and Costanza's dad (although his character is nowhere as good as it was on Seinfeld) are on the show.
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I really hated Robert's girlfriend Amy. Annoying as hell. And for a hosue with 3 kids there didn't seem to be kids around very much.
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