Posted on 09/29/2018 4:48:00 PM PDT by grundle
On Thursday night, the old liberal sitcom Murphy Brown was revived; on Friday, the old conservative sitcom Last Man Standing is raised from the dead. The canceled ABC show has been picked up by Fox and plopped down in its old time period. Both shows exploit the election of Donald Trump to the presidency for laughs; both are nearly unendurable in the context of the current television landscape, which is as obsessed with Trump as Trump is obsessed with TV.
You’ll recall that Tim Allen plays Mike Baxter, marketing director for a store similar to a Bass Pro Shop — lots of sporting goods, just the sort of atmosphere for a man’s man like Mike. He has a wife (played by the always good and long-suffering Nancy Travis), whose role is so thinly written I had to look up the character’s name. (It’s Vanessa.) Mike has three grown children, and, like Archie Bunker, he drives his liberal son-in-law crazy.
But Mike Baxter is no Archie Bunker (in the sense of being a vivid character), and Tim Allen is no Carroll O’Connor (in the sense of being a first-class actor), and Last Man is a pretty standard-issue family sitcom. The Friday premiere features an opening barrage of winking jokes about how quality shows get canceled and moved to other networks. This is followed by Mike doing a lot of gloating about the results of the last presidential election. (Trump is never mentioned by name, but it’s not as though Last Man takes place in an alternate universe.) The show then moves on to a banal plot about a briefly missing grandchild, a fleetingly upsetting situation engineered to bring the squabbling Baxter family together. The idea is that, whether you’re conservative or liberal, we all love our families. It’s all extremely boring.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
The reason she did not return to LMS is because she had found another job.
I didn’t know she was that old.
Yep. She’s on the Re-Boot of, ‘The Golden Girls.’
LOL! I kill myself! *SMIRK*
I was reading the article thinking, “what show was this guy watching?” I’ve always thought that Vanessa’s character was VERY well fleshed out, from having a doctorate in geology, to trying so hard not to offend minorities, to her love in making cringe-worthy puns, to her move from working for an energy company to becoming a teacher. My guess is the loser-writer simply never watched the show, and decided that he couldn’t get everything he needed to know about her character from a single episode.
Something else though... I really loved LMS, but the show after it, “The Cool Kids,” is really hilarious as well. David Allen Greer, Martin Mull, a miniature southern gay guy - Sorry, the guy is a hoot, I just can’t recall his name, and Vicky Lawrence, who absolutely stole the show. For a first episode, which even for excellent series, are often shaky, it was really very good.
Mark
I had completely forgotten she was on Justified. You’re right. She was very good. I picked up on that show for (I think) the last 3 seasons. I see it’s on Amazon Prime now and I may watch it from scratch before I dump Prime.
Back to Last Man Standing, I just read that they’re adding a Chinese kid to the cast who will live with Mike and Vanessa. I’m a little concerned (especially with the new Mandy and the new Boyd) that the show may not be as good as it has been, but the first episode this season was def better-than-average for tv sitcoms.
Quality sitcoms are hard to find. I like Young Sheldon. Although the first episode was disappointing, the 2nd was good. It could be the Leave it to Beaver of this generation.
I predict the Roseanne reboot without Roseanne will also suffer.
Yes, LMS will probably do well with the new Mandy; she is not a show stopper.
Old Mandy was just such a delight! I hope the writes and the “new” Mandy can click!
I liked the way they did it...enough political slaps to show it’s a show for conservatives and also the bit about how so few of us seem to talk anything but politics these days.
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