David Kronke was appointed Mayor of Television after a bloodless coup in 2000. Since then, he has improved infrastructure, championed greater educational opportunities and fought for reforms that have utterly erased corruption and incompetence from the television industry. Since Mr. Kronke has ascended to power, Television is a far better place. "Old Christine" gets older
Inexplicably, CBS has found success in the abject sitcom “Rules of Engagement,” which means it will likely be tearing up its Monday sitcom lineup come the fall-2007 season. “The Class” is almost assuredly gone; that show about meeting someone’s mother that actually hasn’t bothered to introduce the mother after two seasons is doing well only if you’re keeping track on a Special-Olympics-style scorecard and “The New Adventures of Old Christine” is, well, not exactly wowing everyone.
Hence, the network is trying to instill fresh blood in “Old Christine” with a double-pump of new episodes tonight. And I’m not sure the gambit works: Despite some initial comic inspiration (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, starring as a foundering divorcee, won an Emmy last year), the show has emerged as a fairly middling endeavor. Unless your only other alternative is sitting through “Deal or No Deal,” “The New Adventures of Old Christine” really can’t be recommended.
In tonight’s first installment, Christine dabbles with sleep medication with ostensibly comic side effects. I counted maybe three one-liners that someone might actually genuinely find amusing (the studio audience on the (ostensibly) unsweetened laugh track sounded similarly uninspired) and a plot twist that should surprise, exactly, no one.
In the second episode, Christine, worrying that she’s lost her allure, gets it on (sort of) with her ex’s brother, who has a secret (almost). Again, a line or two almost approaches garnering genuine laughs, while the remainder of the punchlines emerge as the sort of wan, listless semi-insults that tend to populate the genre of late, and the plot mechanism that’s intended to launch the episode into paroxysms of hilarity is, well, per the title, pretty “Old” hat.
Which is too bad: Louis-Dreyfuss pours her all into her role. Give her the writers that “Seinfeld” enjoyed in its heyday, and she’d be golden here. (She comes pretty close, nonetheless; far better than she managed in her flailing, short-lived NBC sitcom “Watching Ellie.”)
Still, there’s nothing here beyond Louis-Dreyfuss’ charm to hook viewers into watching. “Old Christine” has become old, indeed, a typically wan sitcom in a TV landscape that eats lame sitcoms for brunch and leaves their bones on the sidewalks for diminutive Pekingeses to sniff at, then reject.
- “The New Adventures of Old Christine;” 8 and 8:30 tonight; hereafter, 8:30 p.m. Mondays.
Comments
I've never watched this show, and you're not making it sound at all palatable. The commercials suck, too. Seeing a 40-something woman doing the same stupid-ass things 20-somethings ostensibly do (at least in sitcom world) just icks me out.
Posted by: Suzy Q | March 13, 2007 4:20 PM
I MISS THE CLASS! IT GOT BETTER EVERY SINGLE WEEK!
Posted by: Yuli Tartuneh | March 18, 2007 5:22 PM