A Man. And His Blog.

Well, it seems like I won’t be getting friends with this show. I could easily cancel it after this episode. But I don’t know. Maybe I’m still too much into torture from television, and maybe I’m still waiting for a big laugh. After all, the pilot made me laugh. And there was a moment here, which made me smile.

The writers should finally stop bringing the same old jokes every time. I got the reason for the divorce during the pilot, and I don’t need it mentioned again and again. I even don’t need all the stories reminding me of it. Like here: Fran (Fran Drescher) literally destroys the wedding of a young couple, because she saw gayness in the guy, and reflects the situation in Fran’s and Peter’s (John Michael Higgins) life. Yeah, boring. And old. And so not funny anymore. Over the last year I have realized I’m pretty much not easily entertained anymore, when it comes to comedies. So, I was only smiling, when Jeremy (Michael Carbonaro) was dancing his little “dream wedding” dance, and the rest was pretty much … sleepy.

At least the direction of the story was alright. HAPPILY DIVORCED is still about the relationship between Fran and Peter, and it doesn’t stop to mention that the two are still in love with each other. The writers could have tried harder to connect that story with the two being broke and in need of money, but the little anniversary in the gay bar was a nice scene, even though I was cringing when they started to dance. Their fake smiles looked so darn fake, I thought about the possibility that the two don’t have any chemistry at all, which is overshadowed by the other fact that it’s a Fran show, and it tries too hard to be funny. It might be funny for the older audience, and the fake smiles might be sweet for this particular audience, but TV nerds like me… Oh my God. That makes the ENTOURAGE episode from before the most hilarious piece of comedy in the history of television.

Now I know why I’m still sticking with the show: I’m not waiting for the first real gag, but the first episode, which does not mentioned the divorce or anything similar, and instead will tell a complete different story. Three episodes in, all the introduction parts have to be over now. Or am I missing something? 3.5/10

Fran's curious: another gay dude in the house?

Cesar's got a phone call on his wallet

Like I expected, I’m about to cancel HAPPILY DIVORCED, before it has even really begun. While the pilot had something like charm and was actually funny sometimes, the second episode was a whole snoozefest, with the exception of a couple of minutes in the middle, when I’ve had something to laugh to.

I was hating all the stereotypical gay jokes. Starting with Fran (Fran Drescher) not even making subtle gay jokes – I believe she finds it funny just to repeat the word “gay” over and over, and the audience will laugh. Yeah, audience stuck in the 1980s maybe, but not me. Damn, did I roll with my eyes during the first half. I even wondered why Drescher was still beating around the bush with this episode and repeated the story of Peter (John Michael Higgins) being a husband turned gay? I already got that fact in the pilot, and I don’t need another gag. That’s just lazy writing – or the writers haven’t found better gags. Who knows?

Having Elliott (D.W. Moffett) in this episode was at least interesting, because he brought something of a story. The only thing is that the writers completely failed to tell it through his eyes. I still don’t know how a woman’s love interest is thinking about the gay ex-husband in the house, even in the same room, except Elliott kinda hating it and being annoyed of it. But the whole episode crashed down, when Elliott was suddenly gone, and the episode didn’t even deliver a story after the story. I’m even so nice to say that the “threesome” was the funniest part in the episode (yeah, I was actually laughing), but everything after that fell together in itself. As if the first half was preparing for the threesome scene, and then everything didn’t matter anymore.

All in all, an almost terrible episode with every opportunity wasted and one working joke. I’ll give this show one more episode. 3.5/10

Hey, something funny!

That's what I wanted to do while watching this snoozefest

I’m definitely not in the need of a old-fashioned sitcom, especially when it’s completely out of my range. HAPPILY DIVORCED is the typical late-80s, early 90-s TV sitcom, which miraculously survived well beyond the 21st century, and is now being aired on a cable network, which seems to bring all the 90s sitcom back to life. I don’t mind, as long as they entertain the old folks, and if there’s a gem hidden somewhere. I can say for HAPPILY DIVORCED that it’s not one of those gems, but it is entertaining enough to watch at least a couple more episodes, just to see if it might be as funny as the pilot.

I was actually surprised about the quality of it. I’m one of the people on this planet who doesn’t care about Fran Drescher (so don’t expect me to watch THE NANNY), but finds the moments awkward, where she pretends to be the funniest person in the room, when she isn’t (for me). That made especially the title intro awkward, when her name was flashing into my eyes, while the rest of the cast don’t get the same treatment. Yeah, sure, Fran is the star of the show, she produces it, she writes for it, she created it, but do I sense some ego from her point of view, when it comes to this sitcom? At least I can say no wonder why I never watched anything with her – she isn’t really a charming actress, her voice was totally annoying (she sounded like an alien), and her character wasn’t the one with all the hilarious comedy bits.

It was actually Peter (John Michael Higgins), who could shine more. Since he was the gay character, the clichés were on his side, as well as the writers unfortunate way of writing his character in a way, which could be described as terrible. But I somehow digged the humor, mostly because the box full of stereotypes was raped with Peter: Beginning with how he interacts with his ex-wife, going over to how he reacted to the picture of Cesar’s (Valente Rodriguez) cousin, continuing with his behavior when he was talking about the sing-along, and ending with the terribly awkward closing scene, when he was looking for his neck pillow. But since there are all the clichés lying, I’m almost keen to hope that Peter will be the source of all the good comedy, and not Fran.

One thing about the pilot was really, really awkward though: It was basically two episodes in 21 minutes. I don’t know what the producers were thinking about the six-month time jump in the middle of the story. The whole situation after Peter dropping the bomb was missing, and there were a lot of funny opportunities created of how Peter and Fran are getting into the fact that they will be divorced, but still live together. I completely missed the fact that Peter was still living with Fran – there was half an episode of pure comedy lying around, and it was not used at all. Instead the episode jumps forward half a year and gives us Fran’s new dating life, which could have been an excellent story in the second episode if completely unfold. In addition, it made Fran’s dating situation not funny, and Elliott (D.W. Moffett) was just a boring character – I couldn’t buy he had the hots for Fran, and the moment in the restaurant was not believable. But it could have been, when the episode would have started with Fran and Elliott meeting, and not the scenes six months prior. No, that was in no way good writing. Maybe nobody found an idea of how to fill the time between Peter dropping the gay bomb and Fran having her first after-marriage date, which is why they just jumped over that timeline. Lame.

But at the end I was surprised that I kinda liked it. Maybe I’m still into old-fashioned comedy, and maybe I should keep my eyes open for those in future. Who knows, with less gay jokes and much less Fran Drescher, there could be a good sitcom similar to MELISSA & JOEY airing on a network nobody tunes in to, because it always airs such old crap… 6/10

This gay dude has blue eyes. Or just contacts

One guy gay, the other dying on his plate: Fran's life isn't easy