Nostalgia has its limits. People might think they like the good old days — until they actually show up again.
The spate of TV reboots, intended to remind viewers of their youth (gone) and advertisers of the days of good nightly ratings (gone), continues apace, despite the recent cancellations of “Murphy Brown” on CBS, “Beverly Hills 90210” on Fox (as “BH90210”) and “Will & Grace” on NBC. The revamped “One Day at a Time” struggled to find a home after Netflix dumped it (the series will resurface on PopTV). Only “Dynasty” on the CW and “Roseanne,” which morphed into “The Connors” after ABC fired Roseanne Barr, can be considered successes.
So what was anybody at Spectrum TV thinking when the cable company announced a reboot of “Mad About You”? The series starred Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt as New York City newlyweds Paul and Jamie Buchman and ran for seven years (1992-99) on NBC. Never a top hit, the show won a Golden Globe as Best Comedy Series and four Emmys for lead actress Hunt. Everyone should have been satisfied with a job well done.
The reboot, which lists Reiser and Hunt as executive producers, comes into a drastically changed TV landscape. Shows such as “Fleabag” and “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” are taking home the Emmys for Best Comedy Series, satires such as “The Righteous Gemstones” and “Schitt’s Creek” have won over viewers and even staid CBS will green-light a romantic comedy between a Nigerian nurse and a compression-sock salesman (“Bob Hearts Abishola”).
And it sticks out like a sore thumb.
The first thing you notice about “Mad About You” is the laugh track. Dated, desperate or both? The Buchmans, now middle-aged, are seeing their only child Mabel (Abby Quinn) off to college at NYU — a mere five blocks from where they live in Greenwich Village. Mabel was just a baby when the original “Mad About You” signed off 20 years ago. Fans have no relationship to the character, so her status in the lives of her parents won’t mean much — and the abrasive Quinn is a drag.
The first episode is mainly a collection of silly jokes, with the Buchmans taking turns barging in on Mabel in her dorm room, and secondary storylines featuring John Pankow as Paul’s cousin Ira in his fancy Italian restaurant and Jerry Adler as the building superintendent, Mr. Wicker. We are not laughing yet.
The writers could have had some fun with the prospect of the Buchmans facing each other in mid-life, but instead they lurch from empty-nest gags to menopause jokes. What is this, a Phyllis Diller routine?
Jamie goes on a job interview after a 16-year employment gap — again, a promising topic — and sweats her way through it. With damp tissues stuck to her face as she leaves the interview, mortified, Hunt is made to deliver lines like this to her younger, female interviewer: “It’s coming for you.”
Hunt and Reiser have an easy chemistry with each other — they are two pros who know how to do TV comedy. But perhaps a better way to catch up with Paul and Jamie would have been a two-hour TV movie. Time has not been kind to the kind of sentimental, shticky humor that once made “Mad About You” popular. With six episodes premiering Wednesday and a second set of six ready to debut in December, this may go down as one of the most forgettable “returns” of the year.
Ref;nypost.com