DAVID BIANCULLI

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ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

LINDA DONOVAN

Assistant Editor

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MIKE HUGHES

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TOM BRINKMOELLER

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NOEL HOLSTON

 
 
 
 
 
MAD ABOUT YOU
November 20, 2019  | By David Bianculli  | 1 comment

Spectrum, 3:00 a.m. ET

 

SERIES RETURN: The original Mad about You, starring Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt as the married Buchmans, premiered way, way back in 1992, and won Hunt a passel of Best Comedy Actress Emmys. The series ended in 1999, with a finale episode that took their newborn baby, Mabel, and flash-forwarded 22 years into the future, where a now-grown Mabel, played by Janeane Garofalo, had become a young filmmaker. Now, do a flash-forward in the real world 20 years after that finale. The series Mad About You is being revived, with the original leads, and picking up the story – sort of. In the premiere episode of this new Mad About You, Mabel is not a filmmaker, is played by new cast member Abby Quinn, and is about to go off to college – five blocks away, as a freshman at NYU. Both John Pankow, later of Episodes,and Richard Kind are back for this new venture, and Kind increases the show’s wattage instantly with a Kramer-type boost of energy. There’s nothing wrong with this new Mad About You, and except for some eventual language “updates,” each episode could easily have aired on NBC two decades ago. But the first six episodes of this new version, all of which are available today, aren’t presented on broadcast TV. They’re on cable – and only on one cable system, Spectrum, as an offering on the company’s Spectrum On Demand feature. Which means there wasn’t that much Demand for this particular reboot, or it would have found a more recognizable and accessible home. Hunt and Reiser, for the record, slip back into their roles comfortably, and their on-screen chemistry is as evident as ever. And Hunt, also for the record, sits in the director’s chair as well. For a full review, see Ed Bark's Uncle Barky's Bytes.

 
 
 
 
 
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1 Comments
 
 
Zeke
I think Hunt won so many Awards because all the Peer-aged men had a "Mad About You" crush on her!
Only repeated, generation later, with 'New Girl"!!
(are we going forward, or back?)
Nov 20, 2019   |  Reply
 
 
 
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