[Bianculli here: First CBS denied The New Adventures of Old Christine a spot on its upcoming fall schedule, then yanked it Wednesday night for a special-night rerun of How I Met Your Mother. Contributing writer Tom Brinkmoeller thinks Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and her very funny sitcom (that's my verdict, too), got a raw deal...]
'Christine': New, Refreshing Series; Same Old Network Story
Lost, 24 and Law and Order have checked out of prime time for good, and I feel no differently. Their departures got lots of attention, but not from me.
When I pledge allegiance to a series, it's usually a long-term commitment based on a wonderfully mixed chemistry of acting, writing, casting and production.
Series that are packed with vague clues and nuances -- ones that only mandatory weekly attendance guarantees the chance of understanding -- require more effort than almost any television deserves. Same can be said for series that dilute themselves into translucence by endlessly spinning off clones.
On the other hand, I'm really bothered that CBS (stands for "Couldn't Be Stupider"?) has turned off the power to The New Adventures of Old Christine. The series' concept couldn't have been fresher: Relationships linking former wife, former husband, current wife (all delightfully unbalanced characters), brother (who at times appeared almost normal, compared to the others), and first wife's best friend/business parter/spouse of immigration contrivance.
Name another series, ever, that can claim such a mix. Go ahead and name one, CBS, who got rid of this delightful half hour on its 2010-11 fall schedule to make room for The Defenders, Hawaii Five-0, Tom Selleck and William Shatner. (What? No Andy Griffith or Petticoat Junction resurrections?)
Christine, it must be noted, pulled off that concept with some of the most inventive humor to land in modern-day prime time. Which forces the question: Why ditch this show and leave Rules of Engagement, a show built from surplus-store wares, on the air?
Some will say Christine, which starred Julia Louis-Dreyfus, is just another victim of "the Seinfeld curse." That's a term, I'm betting, that was dreamed up by programmers who would love to pin responsibility for the failures of series starring Seinfeld alumni on a mythical curse instead owning up to their own poor skills at knowing what makes good television.
Jason Alexander and Michael Richards were fortunate to be chosen as Seinfeld co-stars. Their luck ran out when they tried to pick series in which they would star.
(And do we blame this same "Seinfeld curse" for its namesake's odd decision to get involved with The Marriage Ref, an indistinguishable oddity that's the artistic equivalent of the "puffy shirt"?)
The Old/New Christine casting was faultless: Clark Gregg as Richard, daffy, clue-impaired and uber-horny spouse of both the new and old Christines; Hamish Linklater as Matthew, old Christine's brother and a man who swam near the drain of craziness so often, he sometimes got suctioned into it; Wanda Sykes, a fabulously funny actress who played her Barb character as the reality counterpoint to the cyclone of wackiness that enveloped the others in the stories.
Finally, there was Louis-Dreyfus as Old Christine. That a really talented comedian would take on Old Christine, a character with no redeeming social values, and craft her craziness into the axis on which this superior series spun is proof of her special talent. Except for the character of Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm, it's hard to think of such an out-of-balance character carrying a successful TV comedy so well.
What's worse is that this is the second time a network has messed up a very good Louis-Dreyfus series. When Watching Ellie started running on NBC in 2002, it was delightfully different to the point that it reinvented the sitcom field: Each episode was shown as a real-time 22-minute package. (Think of it as 24 with real laughs and without the rat's nest of plot lines.) Then NBC started messing, and Watching Ellie's network run turned into a hobbled, painful crawl. Killing inventiveness is a sport in which networks excel.
She isn't the only victim of dunderheaded network decisions. Heroes, one of TV's hottest series a few seasons ago, was messed with by NBC until fans could no longer follow the path and just gave up. Just one example. Any fan of television that is worth watching almost surely has a personal list of favorites that were meddled to death.
Such harassment would be illegal in the real world. But when television labels creatures like Survivor and Biggest Loser as "reality shows," we more fully understand that the people who run things there have a very odd concept of what's real.
Snit nearly completed. I just want to add: Thank you, creators and cast of The New Adventures of Old Christine, for all the entertainment and the many laughs. It's just a lousy shame the gatekeepers of prime-time television have much more power than they have imagination.