Aging Poorly: Ellen Is More A Sign Of The Times Than An Enduring Series!

The Good: Good performances, Much of the humor, Interesting characters
The Bad: Laugh track, Erratic series
The Basics: Ellen does a fair job of bringing the comedy of Ellen DeGeneres to television, but the five seasons of the show are more erratic and dated than consistent and timeless.


I have long been a fan of the comedy of Ellen DeGeneres. In fact, back when Comedy Central was a new network, playing old clips of stand-up comedians, Ellen DeGeneres’s routines were easily some of my favorites (though Steven Wright amused me quite a bit, too!). So, in my teen years, I was thrilled that DeGeneres managed to get her own sitcom and, despite a complete retuning after the first season, I was pretty much hooked. The show that gave DeGeneres a chance to wow a broader audience was Ellen - though the show began as These Friends Of Mine. Competing with the likes of Seinfeld, Ellen featured Degeneres’s awkward humor in a character tailored to her comedy.

Ellen ran for five seasons and is currently only available as a bundle pack of the DVDs:
Ellen - Season 1
Ellen - Season 2
Ellen - Season 3
Ellen - Season 4
Ellen - Season 5

Ellen follows the life and daily tribulations of Ellen Morgan. After a series of terrible dates and ludicrous schemes, Ellen’s entire social network is upended. Morgan works at a book store which is mismanaged by its owners until Ellen is put in charge. Ellen tries to balance managing the book store with the space used in the store for the coffee shop (which is managed by the sarcastic Canadian, Joe). But travails like the Los Angeles earthquake and the desire to buy her own home lead her to sell the bookstore, even though she stays on as manager, on and off.

Ellen’s personal life revolves initially around dating and crazy schemes (like trying to keep a friend’s family members from seeing a sex tape that the friend made and inadvertently switching the tape out multiple times and playing the offensive tape for them!). But as the seasons go on, Ellen dates, helps friends, gets into work problems, and eventually realizes that her bad luck with men comes largely from the fact that she’s gay and has been fighting that impulse for years. But her revelation of her sexual identity comes at a price when her homophobic boss leads her to quit her job at Buy The Book and her entire life is turned upside-down.

So much of Ellen Degeneres’s comedy is observational humor and sometimes Ellen struggles to incorporate her comedy into the stories. As a result, Ellen Morgan frequently delivers incongruent stories to the main plot or actions of an episode. This characterizes Morgan as wacky, weird, and somewhat out of touch with reality. As a result, Ellen finds herself in the company of people who are equally messed up as she is: her best friend represses his feelings, Joe is deeply sarcastic, Paige is incredibly competitive, Spence is a failure at all his life has been built around and Audrey is so annoying that she is introduced as a woman who Ellen cannot stand to such an extent that she is trying to “dump” her, but feels so bad when Audrey learns how little she is liked that Ellen has to woo her!

Like most sitcoms, Ellen survived for so long because its characters were memorable. The main characters in Ellen are:

Ellen Morgan – A wacky bookstore manager, she lives with Adam and works with Joe. She takes a long string of weird men until she comes out of the closet and finds happiness with a real estate agent who has a daughter. She is continually hounded by her parents, who have some marital difficulties after being together for decades. She revises her goals in life after Buy The Book is nearly destroyed in an earthquake and her cousin Spence ends up on her doorstep. She is friends with Paige, though she has remarkably little in common with her. When she decides to grow up, she devotes herself to buying a house, which forces her to sell the bookstore,

Joe Farrell – A sarcastic Canadian who runs the coffee shop portion of Buy The Book. He dates strange women and is generally a thorn in Ellen’s side, at least, professionally,

Paige Clark – Ellen’s best friend from childhood, she is in the movie industry and tries to help Ellen out when it serves her purposes. She is promiscuous and gets involved with Spence, which complicates Ellen’s life,

Audrey Penney – Arguably the most annoying woman in the world, Ellen loathes her. She and Joe become decent friends; she seems perky, but is actually disturbingly dark and angry,

Spence Kovak – Ellen’s cousin, he appears on her doorstep after the earthquake. At that time, he is running from his family’s expectations that he will become a doctor. Instead, he loaf around Los Angeles and gets involved with Paige and helps Ellen out,

And Adam Green – Ellen’s roommate initially, he is a photographer who experiences increasing levels of success while his dating life stalls. He becomes the object of Audrey’s affections, but has a secret of his own which makes Ellen incredibly uncomfortable.

Despite an erratic overall narrative, Ellen succeeds (when it does) because of the strength of the cast. Ellen DeGeneres makes Ellen Morgan’s divergent stories seem like they are coming from a completely well-realized human being and she binds the disparate phases of the series together well. DeGeneres has great on-screen chemistry with Ayre Gross and Jeremy Piven (Adam and Spence, respectively). David Anthony Higgins slouches wonderfully through the role of Joe and Joley Fisher is consistently wonderful as the often-shallow Paige.

But Ellen is plagued by a lack of consistency and one of the worst laugh tracks in modern television. The show is funny, but Ellen Degeneres’s comedy needs room to breathe and far too often, the show forces the laughs at the inopportune moments or on the wrong beats. The result is a collection of episodes that are more worth henpecking through than getting in one complete collection.

For other television series' that made their debut on ABC, please check out my reviews of:
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 1
Happy Endings - Season 1
V - Season 2
Mr. Sunshine
Lost
Pushing Daisies - Season 1
Invasion
Boston Legal
Alias
The Job
Once & Again - Season 2
Once & Again - Season 1
Sports Night
Spin City - Season 1
NYPD Blue - Season 4
Twin Peaks
V - The Complete Series
Battlestar Galactica - The Complete Epic Series

6/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Ellen - Season Five: The Peak Season No One Watched (Or Bought!)

The Good: Smart, Funny, Well-written, Decent acting, Good character development
The Bad: Lack of decent DVD bonuses, Somewhat preachy
The Basics: A worthwhile boxed set for fans of Ellen or Ellen DeGeneres comes in the form of the fifth season of Ellen, which presents an openly lesbian protagonist.


There's a strange irony associated with the television show Ellen, the sitcom that originated as a vehicle for the comedy of Ellen DeGeneres: the show's characters become better and more distinctive as characters when the show introduces real elements from the life of Ellen DeGeneres. Yes, strangely the characters become more actualized when the show becomes more autobiographical. As a result, the strongest season of the series may well be season five, now out on DVD.

Having come out of the closet as a lesbian in season four (reviewed here!), Ellen returned with a new direction and a new sense of energy . . . to a network run by Disney where the stockholders were exerting new influence and control over the programming. As a result, Ellen - Season Five would be the last of the season when it and Nothing Sacred were canceled due to pressures from conservative groups. It was a particularly spineless season for ABC, but on DVD, the fifth season of Ellen is preserves for posterity.

Between jobs, Ellen Morgan begins to flounder as she tries to adapt to being an out and proud lesbian and find steady employment. Ellen has her friends to rely on, though Paige continues to take issue with Ellen's lesbianism. Ellen finds herself getting into more and more capers, often as a result of her meddling - most notably with her separated parents, and she finds a new love interest who seems to offer her all she ever wanted.

I remember when the season began airing some people had a real problem with some of the openness of it, starting right off the bat with the season premiere. In the first episode of the boxed set, Ellen begins to question her sexuality. Conservatives loathed, of course, Ellen bringing up anything other than being heterosexual and there were many within the lesbian/gay/bisexual community who hated that Ellen would even question her hard lesbian stance with even the possibility of being bisexual. On DVD, the episode seems very reasonable and very real and surprisingly inoffensive (to anyone, actually). The members of the Community who fell away from the premiere ought to have been brought back by "It's A Gay, Gay, Gay, Gay World!" later in the season, which presents a homonormative world and it's a brilliant statement on tolerance.

With the fifth season of Ellen, the show takes a turn into wide open territory. The episodes are about a lesbian character exploring her newly-realized (or articulated) lesbianism. The show, yes, becomes about what it means to be lesbian in America in the late 1990s. And it's funny, it's quirky and it's socially relevant and poignant. In "Hospital," for example, the comedy explores the lack of civil rights for lifepartners in homosexual relationships and it is poignant and troubling to any who believe in love and the importance of spousal privilege.

So yes, this boxed set is not going to be on the Christmas list of anyone who is intolerant of lesbian/gay/bisexual rights and issues . . . but maybe it ought to be. What the fifth season of Ellen illustrates very well is the common humanity of all peoples and Ellen's sudden lesbianism does not so radically alter her character that she is not able to ramble with pointless segues and nonsequitors, it does not change her devotion to her friends or her desire to see her parents solve their relationship problems. Indeed, if nothing else, Ellen in this season reveals for those who might belabor under any other pretense, that being gay is simply ONE aspect of a personality and it need not be an oppressively dominant one. Ellen Morgan is almost the same as she was in the prior seasons, save she mentions being gay . . . well, a lot.

But coming out and being out gives the show a fertile new territory to explore. Ellen's prior failed relationships are almost written off as a function of her being gay until . . . she gets into a relationship and discovers ALL relationships are work and she doesn't relate easily to anyone! And there's the first time, dealing with Laurie's family (including her daughter), her friends, and finding employment . . . and just working on living with another person.

The boxed set is funny and relevant and clever and worthwhile, more than just for fans of Ellen. Indeed, this might be the most accessible boxed set since season two for simply jumping into the series.

For those unfamiliar with the series, this is who the principle characters of Ellen are and how the fifth season finds them:

Ellen Morgan - Learning what it is to be a part of gay and lesbian culture, Ellen stumbles into dating when she meets Laurie, a single mother who she is instantly attracted to. Ellen and Laurie work on forging a relationship, which occasionally puts Ellen at odds with her friends. Meanwhile, the awkward and goofy Ellen searches for employment, becoming Emma Thompson's assistant and eventually getting (I kid you not) a talk show,

Paige - Less promiscuous than in the past, Paige is still self-involved and struggles to adapt to Ellen's newfound open sexuality. She continues to spar with Spence and miss all the time she and Ellen used to have . . . when Ellen was single,

Spence - Ellen's cousin whose law career is taking off, he is relegated to a supporting position this season and has his biggest moment when he is knocked out by bug spray and wakes up in an alternate universe that teaches him a very important lesson,

Audrey - Still perpetually cheerful and perky and annoying and supportive, Audrey eagerly encourages Ellen to explore her new culture and bears the brunt of many of Paige and Spence's barbs. She and Joe get closer this season,

and Joe - Ellen's good friend and maker of her coffee, he is low-key and often deadpans his reactions to everything around him. He is understated and ironic and never overcomes being a purely supportive character.

Also in the mix as a supporting character is Laurie, Ellen's accountant, a single mother who is a lesbian and is attracted to Ellen. The two form a relationship, though Laurie is relegated to supporting, recurring character this season.

Ellen - Season Five illustrates a decent growth of the actors in the series. Supporting players David Anthony Higgins (Joe) and Clea Lewis (Audrey) hone their sense of comic timing, even though they are most often used for simply delivering the punchlines. Jeremy Piven comes into his own as Spence and it is easy to see how he got Entourage based on his performances in this season. Similarly, Joley Fisher virtually assures her future employment (she went on to 'Til Death, season one reviewed here!) with her portrayal of Paige, who delivers some of the funniest rebuttles with a genius sense of delivery and timing.

But as with the prior seasons, the show is carried on the back of Ellen DeGeneres, who plays Ellen Morgan. DeGeneres is great this season and she seems at ease with the character in a way that makes Ellen Morgan seem perfectly organic. DeGeneres and Lisa Darr (Laurie) have great on-screen chemistry, making them seem like a viable couple. But even with the redirect into the lgb culture, DeGeneres manages to create a universal character who is funny and she pulls off kissing on-screen with the same ease as she carries out the apparent realism of showing up at a wake dressed as a rooster.

All the way around, this season is consistently funny and worthwhile. On DVD, the supreme disappointment continues to be the lack of exploitation of the medium. the season five boxed set is light on bonus features, with only a series of outtakes to reward buyers of the boxed set. It's likely to disappoint fans who wanted more from the series. It's not enough to not recommend the set, though.

For other final seasons of sitcoms, please visit my reviews of:
30 Rock - Season 7
Frasier - Season 11
Happy Endings - Season 3

8/10

For other television and movie reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Ellen Comes Out Of Mediocrity With "The Complete Fourth Season!"

The Good: Funny, Socially relevant, Different, Well-written, Good character development, Sense of going somewhere
The Bad: DVD Extras are very light
The Basics: In the fourth season of Ellen, Ellen Morgan (eventually) comes out of the closet, with very few DVD extras.


One of my increasing number of pet peeves in the area of entertainment are television shows wherein a celebrity of one medium attempts to become a talent in television with a clear vehicle to cash in on their celebrity. I'm actually okay with that part; my problem is I get annoyed when these vehicles are so unoriginal and obvious that the writers cannot be bothered to change the name of the featured actor to create a character. So, for example, Michael J. Fox's comeback vehicle Spin City had Fox playing Michael Flaherty, Jim Belushi's pathetic entrance into sitcoms, According To Jim, did a similar thing, and on Ellen, Ellen DeGeneres plays Ellen Morgan. The only obvious vehicle that comes to mind that did not do this was Arsenio in which Arsenio Hall played a sportswriter named Michael, which I suppose would be like calling Matlock "Andy!," but it worked for me. By the fourth season of Ellen, I had pretty much accepted Ellen Morgan as a differentiated character from Ellen DeGeneres, until "Ellen's Deaf Comedy Jam" and "The Puppy Episode" in the fourth season wherein Ellen Morgan plugs one of Ellen DeGeneres's videos and Ellen Morgan comes out of the closet (which DeGeneres had done months prior).

Ellen - Season 4 is the season most fans of the series have been waiting for on DVD and this is the turning point for the series when, late in the season, Ellen Morgan comes out of the closet as a lesbian and the show becomes preoccupied with lesbian, gay, and bisexual issues in a heteronormal society. And bravo! It's about time! Ellen's "The Puppy Episode," a two-part celebrity-filled coming out episode that appears on the third disc in this boxed set turns the series on its head for the last few episodes and sets up the fifth season quite well.

For those unfamiliar with Ellen, the series focuses on Ellen Morgan, a rambling bookstore owner who is surrounded by friends who are vain, heartbroken, and/or just plain annoying. She is known for getting herself into problems like becoming over competitive while bowling or donating blood and then going to a wine tasting, but is more known for her digressions in conversation wherein she will talk herself into a completely different place than where she intended to go. She and her friends (and cousin Spence!) get themselves into a number of amusing situations this season that more distinctly create the characters of the world of Ellen, as opposed to simply moving along Ellen DeGeneres's career. This season, Ellen buys her own home, gets a boss, and deals with her parents separating. With her friends, Ellen works to help Paige get revenge on someone who put gum in her hair at camp twenty-five years before, takes a pregnancy test with Paige and Audrey but then mixes them up, and goes to rock and roll camp and a spiritual retreat. In many ways, the show is a typical twenty-two minute sitcom, though this season there is a nice sense of cohesion as the series ramps up to "The Puppy Episode" by making jokes and hints (like Ellen literally walking out of a closet of a house she's looking to buy in the second episode of the season) throughout.

To better understand this boxed set, it helps to know who the principle characters are. In this season, the show is stable with:

Ellen Morgan - Having decided to buy a house and sell the bookstore, Ellen finds herself struggling with her sexuality and working to reunite her parents, who are separated. She hangs out with her friends and slowly opens up to the possibility that she is a lesbian (and not just unlucky with men!). She is in therapy and finds herself valuing a new therapist when she finally comes to understand that she is gay,

Paige - Still self-centered, though less promiscuous now that she is (mostly) seeing Spence, she has difficulty with Ellen's coming out. She hires Spence to work at her office, is worried she might be pregnant, and gives her dog to Ellen while she goes on a vacation to Mexico,

Spence - Still floundering since he gave up on his dreams of working in the medical profession, he continues his on-again, off-again relationship with Paige. He is very protective of her when they are caught in a robbery at the book store, appreciates her attempt to keep him employed and becomes an amnesiac when they go to Las Vegas together,

Joe - Fired by the new boss, he discovers an old fashioned way to solve his money problems when he finds a wealthy woman to take care of him,

and Audrey - Still annoying, Audrey (who does not appear to be married anymore, despite mentioning a husband in her earliest appearances) falls in love with a deaf actor. She, too, takes a pregnancy test to help ease Paige's mind and is enthusiastic and supportive when Ellen comes out.

Episode-wise, the season is possibly the funniest and best of the series, despite "The Clip Show Patient," a cheap retrospective which immediately precedes the must-have-been-expensive "The Puppy Episode." On DVD, the real disappointment is the astonishing lack of extras. There is a commentary track featuring the writers on "The Puppy Episode," but there is really nothing more to look forward to from the DVD presentation. In other words, while there is great humor in the episodes and the show becomes socially important, this is not an incredible use of the DVD medium and is likely to disappoint those who wanted more.

The acting in this season is decent, with Joley Fisher, Clea Lewis and David Anthony Higgins all being given the chance to expand their parts and stretch their acting wings more. Jeremy Piven, who joined the cast as Spence in the third season (reviewed here!), has the best opportunities to gain airtime this season and he uses them well. Piven has an incredible sense of comic timing and he plays off Fisher and DeGeneres with impressive skill and a great sense of creating a genuine character. He steals ever scene he is in in "Makin' Whoopie" and "Hello, Dalai."

Ellen DeGeneres, ironically, illustrates more acting talent in this season than any of the prior ones. Instead of simply delivering her schtick, here she creates a character who actually has a struggle and works the entire season to develop her with realism and a sense of separate identity. And, for the most part, it works. The irony here is that when Ellen Morgan is made more like Ellen DeGeneres, the actress is able to make the character more distinctive and separate. So, instead of rambling old bits of DeGeneres's stand up comedy, Ellen Morgan becomes a character with a struggle and a humor that is more than simply DeGeneres looking to camera with her trademark blase deadpan. This season, DeGeneres illustrates she can act and she performs Ellen Morgan as a genuine character that seems more full of herself than in prior seasons.

But at the end of the day, this is an entertaining show and this boxed set provides good value for the money. These episodes hold up remarkably well over multiple viewings and there is something to be said about the social relevance of the show at this point. It is funny and poignant and it leads to something (the fifth season) quite well.

For other groundbreaking television comedies, please visit my reviews of:
Arrested Development - Season 4
The Lone Gunmen
Weeds - Season 1

8/10

For other television reviews, please visit my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Ellen Hits Its Stride With Ellen - The Complete Third Season!

The Good: Funny, Good character development, Some decent performances
The Bad: Still a lot of pretty standard plots, Crappy DVD bonus features!
The Basics: While not the best season of Ellen, the third season continues to show improvement and makes a worthwhile addition to any comedy DVD library.


Ellen - The Complete Third Season illustrates growth with the programming, but nothing at all remarkable as far as its use of the medium. Like the second season (reviewed here!) of the show, the third season of Ellen adds a new character and continues to distance itself from the first season (reviewed here!). The result is a funny show that finally lives up to much of what it can be as an ensemble comedy, though like the previous boxed sets before it, this season has dismal DVD extras. The result is a mix of decent programming that does not make good use out of the DVD medium.

Following on the heels of the 1995 San Francisco earthquakes, Ellen's shop, Buy The Book, is damaged and her cousin Spence comes to stay in the city. Spence is running away from his training to be a doctor and he finds himself hanging out with Ellen and her friends and employees, Paige, Joe, Audrey and Adam. Ellen finds herself happy to have Spence around when, shortly after his arrival, Adam is offered a photography job overseas and leaves Ellen behind.

This season, Ellen and her gang recover from the earthquakes, have a baby shower after Ellen tapes over the video of Paige's sister giving birth, deals with Paige becoming more successful at the movie studio and shooting a film at Buy The Book, and Ellen aiding the police in catching a burglar who robbed the store. Ellen - The Complete Third Season relies somewhat heavier on quest stars than past seasons, with appearances by Martha Stewart, Carrie Fisher, Mary Tyler Moore and Janeane Garofalo, among others. They come by the appearances pretty organically - like Stewart appearing to help Ellen out with a dinner party - but still the show appears to be somewhat desperate by using the celebrity factor.

That said, the show is also consistently funnier than previous seasons. The addition of Spence and the jettisoning of Adam makes the mix finally work with Paige and Spence holding their own opposite Ellen. Because of the time spent with Paige and Spence and their love-hate relationship that often involves the two quipping at one another, more time is taken away from Ellen and her constant monologues. The result is a show that does not seem like it is simply a vehicle for Ellen DeGeneres and her comedy. Instead, the characters begin to stand on their own and actually dominate the show. The show, finally, becomes about the actions and feelings of the characters as opposed to a bunch of people on film delivering lines and telling jokes. And with that, Ellen begins to truly work!

To appreciate this boxed set more, it might help to understand who the characters are this season. They include:

Ellen Morgan - The scatterbrained and likable owner of Buy The Book, she takes Spence in when he arrives and Adam leaves. She maintains her friendship with Paige, who gets her into cool parties, tolerates Audrey who is employed by her, and Joe who works the coffee counter at Buy The Book. This season, she becomes thrilled when her mother gets into therapy, becomes jealous of Adam and Paige when they are successful at their work, and makes a friend while waiting for a mammogram! She illustrates compassion when money problems make it difficult to keep Audrey and young people mob the store to mock a lounge singing act that is performing there,

Paige - Her career takes off and she finds herself involved with a number of projects with big celebrities, like John Travolta. He takes an instant dislike to Spence and becomes engaged to Matt, which guides the latter part of the season. She uses her influence and newfound celebrity to try to help her friends, when she feels like it,

Joe - Shows up and makes coffee and snide remarks,

Audrey - Perky as ever, she comes alive at Buy The Book and thrills to working there, much to the annoyance of the more even-tempered Ellen and Paige. She buys a new car, with Ellen's help,

Spence - Feeling dejected and judging himself harshly for dropping out of his medical training, Spence arrives and is instantly antagonistic to Paige. While he begins to explore a career in law, Ellen tries to help him reconcile with his estranged father,

and Adam - After garnering some career success in the States, Adam is offered a job in Europe and on his way out the door makes a revelation to Ellen.

Spence is played by Jeremy Piven and his appearance on Ellen was so good that it opened me up to later endeavors of his, like Smokin' Aces (*shudder* - reviewed here!). Piven is funny and has a true sense of comic timing that is perfect for the role of Ellen's cousin. Piven rivals DeGeneres with his ability to play witty and quick with the lines and his addition to the cast only strengthens it!

The rest of the cast, which includes Clea Lewis (Audrey), David Anthony Higgins (Joe), and Joley Fisher (Paige), is good but the addition of Piven and using him opposite Fisher makes the series take off. The writing is sharper and funnier and the plots seem both less contrived and more original. The whole cast comes together as an ensemble quite well during scenes at Buy The Book and it's enough to make the viewer wish there were better bonuses. I find myself wondering if the actors were having as much fun on the set as they appear to be having on the screen.

Ellen DeGeneres continues to rightly dominate the show, though and in this season there is a greater sense that she is establishing a character rather than recycling old standup routines. There is less physical comedy and DeGeneres is forced to play her reactions to other people's (most notably Fisher and Piven's) lines and performances. The show hits its stride with these episodes as DeGeneres plays off her fellow castmembers more, instead of simply leading the comedy. This opens the show up to a more organic feel that allows the humor to come from all of the characters and the situations, as opposed to Ellen's rambling monologues.

And there is a sense throughout this season that it is building to something, especially once Paige becomes engaged (the two-part season finale is her wedding) and the more serialized nature makes it very easy to enjoy on DVD with the "Play All" function. I tend to be biased toward serialization, so when the show begins to trend that way, I found I enjoyed it even more and it holds up better on DVD.

The only bonus feature on this three-disc set is a blooper reel and that's disappointing. The prior two seasons had at least one commentary track on an episode each and the DVD bonus features getting worse is just sloppy.

But fortunately, the programming is worthwhile and the situations Ellen gets into become classic, even though some of them - like Ellen getting Paige's engagement ring stuck on her finger - are canned. The dialogue is above par for almost anything else that was on television at the time and it easily holds up on DVD.

For other good third seasons of shows, please visit my reviews of:
Modern Family - Season 3
Friends - Season 3
The West Wing - Season 3

7/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Ellen Improves A Bit With Ellen - The Complete Second Season!

The Good: Funny, New character mix works well, Decent performances
The Bad: Light on DVD extras, Show still doesn't quite hit its stride.
The Basics: While very funny, the second season of Ellen is still not all it can be and it does not use the DVD medium well. Still worth owning!


I'm a bit of a fan of Ellen DeGeneres and it was honestly pretty hard for me to pan the first season of Ellen (reviewed here!) the other day, but the truth is, I can see why the show was retooled after the first season. Fortunately, after the retooling, the show worked quite a bit better (though it still wasn't up to where it gets to in the third season and beyond). On DVD, Ellen - The Complete Second Season features a show that is growing as a sitcom and is getting better with almost every episode, but does not use the DVD medium to its fullest.

For those unfamiliar with the late-'90's show Ellen, the show featured comedian-turned-actress Ellen DeGeneres as Ellen Morgan, a worker at a small bookstore called Buy The Book. In the second season, Ellen becomes the owner of Buy The Book, her friends from the first season have disappeared without a trace (or mention) and the supplemental characters from the first season, These Friends Of Mine, are given more weight. As a result, the show returns as an almost different series and, truth be told, this one works.

Ellen Morgan, now running Buy The Book, finds herself accompanied on numerous adventures by her vain friend Paige. She and roommate Adam continue to hang out when Ellen is not at work, but the photographer soon moves out and Ellen and Paige end up on more adventures together, sometimes accompanied by the uber-perky Audrey. In addition to taking over Buy The Book, this season, Ellen tries to ask out a dentist - but succumbs to laughing gas, becomes fixated on volunteering, dates a weird childhood friend, and gets to make-over the living space when Adam moves out. As well, she and Paige go to a spa in a buddy comedy shtick that is hilarious.

The show has some pretty standard plots, like Ellen deciding to take ballet lessons - which she always wanted to do as a child - but finding the dream doesn't match the goal. There is an episode where Ellen is robbed and then becomes obsessed with personal safety in a comedically over-the-top way and the only real twist on Ellen helping Audrey find an apartment is that Ellen works to situate her friend as far away from her as possible. There's the comedic reversal episodes, like "5,000 Dollars," where Ellen gets a tax refund, gives it to charity and the government recalls the money. And there are just silly concept shows, like Ellen participating on American Gladiators. And throughout the season, there are pretty standard dating foibles where Ellen tries dating various people . . . with hilarious results.

Ellen is definitely getting better when it returns retooled. Paige is a wonderful addition to the mix and having one close friend for Ellen eliminates the problem of developing multiple characters for Ellen to bounce her shtick off of. Indeed, the truly clever aspect of the retooling is that the show instantly returns with a more polished sense because Paige's character so perfectly fits Ellen's ramblings. Ellen rambles with her comedic non sequitors and Paige, being constantly self-absorbed, can simply return with the fact that she wasn't truly paying attention to Ellen and the show moves on. Paige is a wonderful fit for Ellen and slips into the niche (effectively) of Ellen's best friend, which displaces Adam some.

The show has some pretty standard sitcom plots, but in the second season Ellen comes into its own by using what makes Ellen DeGeneres funny. So, there is a greater use of DeGeneres's sense of physical comedy. Ellen Morgan is goofy, has an awkward body language when it comes to dating and exercise and when she attempts ballet, the results are appropriately hilarious.

But more than that, what makes Ellen distinct is the way Ellen Morgan goes into rambling monologues about things that have very little relation to whatever the situation going on in her life is. Ellen starts a conversation with herself and it plays off the other characters wonderfully as almost all of them end up as her straightman and her ability to carry a conversation without including anyone else is . . . eerie in addition to being funny.

But, unlike the first season, the characters now seem more suited specifically to making sure Ellen has characters that work as sounding boards without seeming like they are not their own actual characters. The principle characters in the third season include:

Ellen Morgan - A worker at, then owner of, Buy The Book, a small bookstore in Los Angeles. She obsesses on being liked by her coworkers and employees and often finds herself befuddled, not necessarily because of anyone else or anything in particular . . . it's just the way she is. Her apartmentmate and best friend, Adam, moves out, though Ellen finds herself spending more time with her friend Paige anyway. This season, she dates a guy who was weird when they were children together, a pizza deliveryman, and has fixations on Adam, a customer, and a dentist,

Paige - Bursting into the series is the vain, attractive, and promiscuous woman who works at a movie studio. She is often busy and gives Ellen less-than her full attention, though she does try to help Ellen out by taking her to a spa. She is also given her own things to do when she finds herself agonizing over a gift for her mother,

Joe - The mildmannered, though deeply sarcastic, coffee guy who works at Buy The Book and puts up with Ellen and the customers,

Audrey - While not yet a principle character, she appears in many of the episodes with her annoyingly perky disposition to bug Ellen and Paige. She and Ellen find they have a common sexual fixation when they both have dreams about Adam,

and Adam - Ellen's roommate and a photographer, he begins to find he has less time with Ellen than in the past. He moves out, wins a photo contest intended to reward a female photographer, and he makes a friend that Ellen is not wild about.

It seems every season of Ellen has a guest star for an episode that Ellen has a date with that I get psyched about seeing when I rewatch these DVDs. In the second season, the guest star worth mentioning is an appearance by Bradley Whitford of The West Wing (reviewed here!) and Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip (reviewed here!) and his appearance is funny and enjoyable for fans of his.

With the new mix in the cast, it's nice to see that the show not only works, but works better. Some shows when they retool, they destroy the concept of the original series that made it interesting (Spin City, I'm looking at you!). But the reworking of Ellen makes it decent and the second season is strong and funny, standing up on its own almost as a new series from the very first episode on the first disc. Indeed, those who avoid the first season of Ellen will be able to jump right in with this boxed set and not truly be missing anything important. With all twenty-four episodes on three discs, this is certainly a comedic value.

Part of the reason the show works so well is that Joely Fisher arrives on the first episode feeling like someone who has a natural chemistry with actress Ellen DeGeneres and the two have a great on-screen rapport. Fisher, who went onto the less inspired 'Til Death (season one DVD reviewed here!), has a wonderful sense of comedic timing and she plays the self-absorbed and promiscuous Paige with an effortless quality that causes her to steal almost every scene she is in.

Actor David Anthony Higgins, who plays Joe, is given a number of wonderful and truly biting lines throughout the season and his ability to play low-key and ironic allows him to play off Ellen DeGeneres's mania perfectly.

And this is very much a show held together and held up by the talents of Ellen DeGeneres. DeGeneres has a great wit and episode after episode, she delivers with humor that is consistent and unlike most other comedians. She has an amazing sense of wit that she brings to the program from the very beginning. As well, this season allows her to explore her sense of physical comedy more and, truth be told, that works out wonderfully for her.

In short, the cast comes together and the retooled effort pays off. The show is smart and consistently funny, if not terribly substantive. The characters are interesting, but the show still feels like an effort to sell Ellen DeGeneres (that's overcome in the NEXT boxed set!). It feels like an Ellen DeGeneres vehicle, which it is, but it's problematic because it feels too much like it is, you know?

On DVD, the boxed set is pretty depressing in that the only real bonus feature is commentary on two episodes. Ellen DeGeneres does not participate in the commentary and while it is interesting, it's not the most earth-shattering commentary track ever.

The result is a DVD set that has good (but not fabulous) material, with little to take advantage of the great medium that is DVD.

For other sophomore seasons of note, please visit my reviews of:
NewsRadio - Season 2
Frasier The Complete Second Season
Happy Endings - Season 2

6/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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These Friends Of Mine Makes For Remarkably Average Television And A Strikingly Average DVD.

The Good: The humor of Ellen DeGeneres
The Bad: Mediocre acting, Light on character development, Pretty standard sitcom, Lousy DVD extras
The Basics: Funny, but not exceptional, the average sitcom embodied by These Friends Of Mine (the first season of Ellen) is dragged down by only having one real DVD extra.


I have long been a fan of Ellen DeGeneres. Long before she came out of the closet and even before she had her own television shows, I would watch clips of her and her various specials on the early Comedy Central and marvel at her clever mind and wonderful wit. I loved her nonsequitors and style and I disturbed a friend of mine while reading her book My Point . . . And I Do Have One aloud by getting DeGeneres's cadence and timing down with what I am told was eerie accuracy. If I watched daytime television, I would almost certainly make it a priority to watch The Ellen DeGeneres Show. As it is, there are only so many hours in the day and when I had the opportunity to pick up Ellen - The Complete First Season on DVD, I leapt on it. I had been a fan of Ellen, though I had not seen much from the first season.

In its first season, the show was actually These Friends Of Mine and the series was retooled at the end of the first season such that very little survived the rework and much of the show was altered. This boxed set includes all thirteen episodes of These Friends Of Mine, including the two episodes that were held into the third season of Ellen which are included in this boxed set as "bonus" episodes. Sadly, this season is not up to the standards of the seasons that follow it and we'll explore why.

Ellen Morgan is working at the bookstore "Buy The Book" where she rambles through her day with explanations and monologues to her friends that are loaded with humor. She often finds herself in weird situations exacerbated by her own awkwardness, like her desire to have a decent photograph on her driver's license in the pilot. Ellen and her friends get into various comedic situations that illustrate their friendship or tolerance of Ellen. These circumstances include such things as Ellen testing her call waiting, her friend Holly stuffing her bra and getting a date as a result, Ellen and her friends answering personal ads for dates, going to a high school reunion, trying to get a promotion, Ellen dating a younger guy and hunting for the perfect refrigerator.

These are all pretty standard sitcom plots and the disappointing aspect of These Friends Of Mine is that the plots feel pretty standard. Take, for example, the episode "The Class Reunion." In this episode, Ellen goes to her class reunion and finds that in the fifteen years since graduating high school she has done the least of all her classmates. So, she asks Adam to pretend he is married to her and she pretends she is a cardiologist. This works out fine until her old high school crush arrives hoping to connect with Ellen but believes she is unavailable. Well, there's a plot that seems like it came straight from the situational comedy standards book. Even when watching the episode it feels that way.

The problem with These Friends Of Mine fundamentally is that the only thing that makes the show bearable and watchable is Ellen DeGeneres when she is doing her schtick. She reuses some of her standup lines in her stories she tells when she is digressing, but it works. It works to provide humor to an otherwise very common and dull viewing experience. Ellen is retooled because These Friends Of Mine did not quite work; the show focused quite closely on Ellen and not her friends. Indeed, in this debut season, the friends are not noteworthy or even all that interesting, making it hard to work with them.

The show tries to be about characters and here are the principle characters from the first season:

Ellen Morgan - A worker at Buy The Book and friend of Holly and Anita. She has a friend she does not like named Audrey and works with Joe. She has a roommate named Adam who is arguably her best friend. She rambles a lot in conversations bringing up loosely related points of conversation to wherever she began. She is physically awkward and often goofy, which leads her to have trouble finding or keeping a boyfriend. She is both very particular and very peculiar and wants - at the end of the day - for people to like her,

Holly - Ellen's shy friend whose high point is teaming up with Anita to try to sell some Mexican art,

Anita - Ellen and Holly's friend who works in a department store and is barely in even this season,

Audrey - Ellen's annoying friend who is increasingly negative. She is disaffected by almost everyone and everything and she expresses that negativity with a strange perkiness about disliking everything. This leads her and Ellen to often not see eye to eye and for Ellen to look for ways to avoid having her around,

Joe - The coffee guy at Buy The Book. He works with Ellen and is cynical and low-key, often expressing dissatisfaction for the way things are with dry irony,

and Adam Green - Ellen's roommate. He is a photographer who has a brutal love life that constantly ends up with him being alone. He has pretty low self confidence with women as a result and has a decent platonic friendship with Ellen and the two often find themselves leaning on one another.

The problem with These Friends Of Mine is that Ellen often ends up going into her trademark monologues when talking to Holly and/or Anita, which does not allow either one to truly get a word in and develop themselves as real characters. Instead, they become sounding boards for Ellen DeGeneres's humor and it's pretty easy to see why they did not last. Interestingly, the only significant DVD bonus feature is a commentary track on the first episode that features Holly Fulger (Holly) and Arye Gross (Adam), the former was written out after these thirteen episodes. "Written out" is not quite right; dropped like a sack of bricks would be more accurate.

The commentary track is mildly insightful, but not the best selling point to picking up this set. Indeed, the only reason to pick up These Friends Of Mine would be because one absolutely loves Ellen DeGeneres and her work. I fall into that category, but even that is not enough for me to keep this boxed set in my permanent collection.

That said, in addition to the mere presence of Ellen DeGeneres, and her performance as Ellen Morgan, there are some redeeming factors to Ellen - The Complete First Season on DVD. I was quite amused to see a younger Peter Krause of Six Feet Under (reviewed here!) fame in "The Hand That Robs The Cradle," one of the better episodes of the season. I liked Krause on Cybil and it's always fun to see some of his earlier work.

And when reviewing this DVD set so soon after watching and reviewing the first season of The Practice (reviewed here!), I was delighted to see Arye Gross (who played a rabbi in several of the early episodes of The Practice!) in such a different role as the lovelorn Adam. Gross is actually very funny and completely empathetic as Adam, which is not the easiest role to pull off when being paired with Ellen DeGeneres, who is a master of comedy. Gross manages to hold his own with a more subtle humor and the ability to play the straightman well.

Ultimately, Ellen DeGeneres falls down some on her own show. The reason for this is the character of Ellen Morgan does not require her to act so much as simply physically perform comedy and limit the duration of her standup routines thinly disguised as dialogue. Is she funny? Absolutely. Almost 100%, she's on and she's funny in These Friends Of Mine. But she's not acting.

Given how much the show rests on her and how standard too many of the plots are (though the dialogue is often wittier and funnier than the plots), the show just doesn't pop the way it ought to. The good news is, there are seasons after this one and they are much funnier and work much better.

For other first seasons of sitcoms, please check out my reviews of:
Cheers - Season 1
Friends - Season 1
Family Guy - The Complete First Season

4.5/10

For other television reviews, please visit my Television Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Love Letter Is Utterly Unmemorable!

The Good: Idea, Previews, Acting
The Bad: Characters, Plot, Dialog, Script, Complete lack of humor or purpose
The Basics: A sad - as in pathetic - excuse for a film that barely utilizes its excellent actors in an otherwise worthless film lacking in plot and character and direction.


I saw a preview for The Love Letter and figured, whatwith enjoying Ellen DeGeneres for years, I'd watch the film. Now, far too often, I'm recommending that the viewer not read the backs of video boxes or watch previews (the preview for Bound, for example, ruins the film completely). On this occasion, I'd suggest that one only watch the previews for The Love Letter; more than that is a waste of your time.

It's a pretty sad thing when I watched the film yesterday and it was so utterly unmemorable as to not have a single character whose name I remember. Not one. I had to look them up today.

The Love Letter follows the rather unremarkable path of an ambiguous love letter through a small New England town. Being unsigned and unaddressed, the letter travels through various inhabitants who believe it is for them and they hypothesize on who sent it to them. Sounds like an interesting premise, doesn't it? It's not executed well.

In fact, the script is so weak, the writing so unremarkable and listless and lacking in characters and coherency that I wonder how the script ever was made into a film. The main characters focused on are Helen, who is torn between desire for the firefighter George and the younger, more energetic and passionate Johnny. Helen works at a bookstore and her only remarkable personality trait is an obsessive disorder that makes her attentive to her employees showing up for work on time. She employs Janet, who has an interest in George.

So, basically, the letter makes the rounds between the principles and they react to the letter, based on assumptions from the text. Naturally, none of them are correct and in the end we, the viewers, find out how very wrong we were. We are not surprised.

Ellen DeGeneres and Tom Selleck as Janet and George, respectively, act well. They provide the moments of life in this film. Outside their occasional excellent acting, the film is a stillborn. It's not funny, it's not dramatic, it's not even interesting.

No one in the film rises to the occasion because there is no occasion for them to rise to. There is a lack of a compelling premise and every single joke that is remotely funny is shown in the preview. All of the best lines are there as well. This film is not worth your time or effort.

For other romances, be sure to visit my reviews of:
The Lake House
The Vow
Just Go With It

2/10

For other film reviews, be sure to visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the films I have reviewed!

© 2012, 2003 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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