More Contrived, More Mundane, Mad About You Season Three Is Just Good Enough.

The Good: Good initial laughs, Good character development
The Bad: Mundane plots, No DVD bonus features, No great acting.
The Basics: Very average, Mad About You in its third season takes sitcom standard plots and does them just well enough to be remembered and recommended.


The third season of a television show is usually a turning point. In the best shows, it seems like the third season is where the kinks are usually ironed out and the series begins to live up to its potential. In more mediocre shows, the third season seems to be where the writers stagnate and fall back on the standards of the genre (whatever genre the show is) to keep the series going. As I make my way through Mad About You (season one reviewed here, season two reviewed here!), I reached Mad About You Season Three and realized two things. The first is that this was my favorite season when I was watching the show as it progressed and the second was that it was stiflingly average (at best). Now on DVD, the third season of Mad About You is strangely disappointing and it came to a cointoss for me to give it the soft "recommend" I ultimately did.

Mad About You is a romantic comedy series with the married couple Paul and Jamie Buchman, who live in New York City. The show is mostly episodic and in the third season, the circumstances they find themselves in seem far more mundane than original. This season, for example, has the sitcom standard plots of: crazy Thanksgiving where the family pet eats the turkey, the lost trying to find an old place episode, and the reluctant family member gets stuck eulogizing a dead person they truly didn't know. The thing is, Mad About You does all of those plots without any real flair or uniqueness (by contrast, I recall laughing each and every time to Martin Crane finding the store that sold him his beloved shoes when Frasier did the "trying to find an old place" episode).

In the third season of Mad About You, Jamie returns to school after she and Paul have a disastrous trip to New Jersey. The building the Buchmans live in plans to expand, setting off more conflicts with their stuffy neighbors and Jamie delivers a eulogy for her dead uncle. Parties turn into disasters, from Fran's birthday party to Thanksgiving to Paul's annual cursed birthday and Paul's father hands the store down to the next generation. And shortly after Fran reveals she has gone back to the job she and Jamie used to share, Jamie starts her own public relations firm.

But Jamie's newfound freedom and employment cause tensions between her and Paul, from financial to trying to share the same work space. As Paul struggles to find work - a problematic endeavor when he does get projects, like a fifteen minute unedited PBS special - Jamie picks up the slack and the two work to make more time with one another. The Buchmans have to pose as Paul's parents, which leads to a very odd situation where Paul and Jamie make up completely different stories for everyone at a resort and Jamie encounters multiple ex's. Rather oddly, the season not only illustrates the week before Jamie and Paul got married (Mad About You, Parts 1 and 2) and what would have happened had they never met (the season finale "Up In Smoke").

Mad About You in the third season seems very sedate, with the humor being very safe and often predictable. Most of the plots involve the Buchmans going through a fairly normal day, having Paul make a few notes of observational humor and then the main plot turning slightly when the expectations for what was going to happen with their day askew. There is a repetitive sensibility to the third season, both for those who have seen the prior seasons and those who are just watching the third season. It holds up less spectacularly over multiple viewings than I initially recalled.

That said, the characters are likable on Mad About You and the third season does have some interesting moments for them. In the third season, the primary characters are:

Paul Buchman - who hits a dry spell with work until he gets movies, documentaries and competes for a grant. He is in love with Jamie, his wife for (as the season progresses) three years. He is bothered when his father prepares to give up his sporting good's store, but not to him, and he tries to keep Jamie and their dog, Murray, happy,

Jamie Buchman - Her quest to better herself with a new degree quickly gets sublimated when she becomes her own boss and starts her own public relations firm. Enjoying being in charge and discovering she is real good at the job, she hires her friend Fran and one of her clients pushes her together with an ex-boyfriend who has made her into a villain in his comic book series! Jamie tries to get her uncle buried in the winner's circle at the horse track and she argues with Paul about who is better in love. She is also flabbergasted when she swaps purses with her sister, Lisa,

Lisa - Jamie's sister, she is chronically disorganized and flighty. She becomes organized when she ends up with Jamie's purse, though. She has more of a supporting role this season,

Fran - Jamie's best friend and then employee, she has a flirtation with baseball star Sloopy Dunbar. She loans the Buchmans her car to try to help them get on a romantic getaway,

and Ira - Paul's cousin and friend, he is something of a player. He has the in at the track Jamie needs and he becomes the heir apparent to his uncle's store. He hooks the Buchman's building up with illegal cable and finds himself in a battle of wills with a visitor to the Buchman's apartment when neither trusts the other alone there. His ex-wife returns, this time incredibly rich.

In the third season of Mad About You, the actors were in their stride, but they were pretty much there because they had become perfectly comfortable with the characters they were portraying. As a result, there are no truly fantastic performances, just a sense that the actors know who their characters are and what they are doing. This comes into focus in the flashback two-parter Mad About You where both Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt play Paul and Jamie with virtually the same mannerisms and comfort level as they have in the primary narrative. John Pankow, Leila Kenzle and Anne Ramsay all give solid supporting performances, but again nothing that truly stands out as great acting beyond how they initially took on their characters.

On DVD, Mad About You Season Three is another spartan comedy series and there are no bonus features, making it not substantively different from what one would find for the show in syndication.

Ultimately, there are laughs to be had in Mad About You Season Three, but the show is more mundane and obvious as a situational comedy than it is truly special. But, in the pantheon of all comedy, there is just enough to recommend this season.

For the third season of other comedies, please check out my reviews of:
Friends - Season Three
30 Rock - The Complete Third Season
Frasier - Season 3

6/10

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

© 2013, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Another One For Syndication: Mad About You Season Two Is Average Television/DVD.

The Good: Some amusing moments, Decent character development
The Bad: Acting is average, Plots are very sitcommy, No DVD bonus features
The Basics: A very average season of television on DVD, Mad About You Season 2 is fun to watch, but hard to recommend buying.


In the rush to bring DVDs to market, I wonder how frequently the market is actually evaluated for the need for such things. Sometimes, there is a clear demand: when Family Guy was taken off the air and fans clamored for the episodes, they illustrated that there was a desire for the DVD sets and new episodes. And the smashing success of Firefly (reviewed here!) was enough to get a feature film on the series made. But, with shows in syndication like Two And A Half Men and Everybody Loves Raymond, where the DVD releases offer little outside what fans see on television, I often find myself wondering why they even bother with a DVD release. Truth be told, I'm there now with the second season of Mad About You, a show I enjoyed while it was on, but when I rewatched it on DVD, I realized I hadn't truly missed the program.

Following the first year of their marriage together, Mad About You Season Two follows the life and times of Jamie and Paul Buchman, a New York City couple who still is getting used to being married and spending their lives together. Paul, a film director, and Jamie, a producer who soon finds herself unemployed, are figuring out their relationship while surrounded by Jamie's friend Fran, her sister Lisa and Paul's cousin Ira. The couple lives in an apartment with their dog, Murray, and continues to discover their love for one another and the struggles that come with being married (except, improbably enough, money issues while living in one of the most expensive cities on Earth).

In the second season of the show, Lisa loses Murray, Paul and Jamie have to endure two months apart where their marriage only comes into play on the weekends and Ira finally gets divorced from his absent wife. Paul and Jamie try to find time to be intimate and one time they do - making a tape in the process - they inadvertently send their sex tape to a studio in place of Paul's latest documentary! They have issues with their families, like Lisa calling Jamie an overbearing sister in a book published by her therapist, Paul's father having a cardiac incident and both Jamie and Paul's mothers getting into a fight.

Throughout the season, there is a conscious decision to not have children between the pair as they focus on their careers and on keeping up their romance with one another. Jamie's career takes a turn when she insults her boss at dinner, not knowing he is seated behind her. Paul's career continues to grow as he is given increasingly better opportunities to pursue. In the process of finding time together, they surprise one another, travel together and debate on philosophies like fate vs. self-determination.

Mad About You seems to be a sitcom which is very sit-commy. In other words, all of the humor truly does seem to come from the situations the pair finds themselves in, like Paul scrambling on Jamie's first day of school to get her registered when he realizes he forgot to mail in the registration materials. The situations are often laughable, as is the body language of lead actors Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt. The show looks good, but the characters only have minimal development over the course of the season, so this is more a show about the situations the pair finds themselves in.

To wit, after rewatching the second season, none of the writing stands out for me. My partner and I have watched hundreds of hours of television since we first watched the second season of Frasier (reviewed here!) together, but I can still say "Dad wanted to tell you, but I won the coin toss" and we both burst out laughing because we recall the exact episode and circumstances that quote comes from. But even after immediately concluding the second season of Mad About You, there were no lines that were as sharp, clever or funny that evoked laughter from us. Instead, this is a comedy I found myself smiling at more than actually laughing out loud with.

Even so, it helps to know the trials and tribulations of the main characters to make a decision about whether or not this season is for you. And in the second season of Mad About You, the principle characters are:

Paul Buchman - After squeezing in time to make love with Jamie, he misses taking his nephew out for Halloween because of his shooting schedule. He takes on a problematic producer and ends up getting a job in Chicago for two months. He becomes curious about mortality when another Paul Buchman dies and he debates how his relationship with Jamie was (or not) preordained,

Jamie Buchman - Is thrilled to try to earn points with Sylvia (Paul's mother) when Paul's father has a heart attack. She squabbles with Lisa, especially over her place in Lisa's therapist's book and she gives Paul a haircut - and edits one of his films - while bored. She believes it was fate that brought her and Paul together,

Lisa - Loses Murray and gets referenced (under a pseudonym) in her therapist's book. She plays her mother and Paul's against each other for her benefit and she actually comes to Paul's aid when Paul forgets to put in Jamie's registration forms,

Fran - No longer with her husband, she finds herself shocked when she is late and who she hooked up with to get that way surprises everyone! She remains friends with both Paul and Jamie,

and Ira - Able to treat Paul, Jamie and Fran to a weekend in Atlantic City - which is a ruse by his wife to get him to sign divorce papers, he drifts. He gets Paul interested in virtual reality through a simulation involving Christie Brinkley. And he begins a relationship with Fran which gives him a chance to grow some.

But, more often than not, Mad About You in its second season is about the situations the characters fall into and how they become resolved, as opposed to excessively evolving the characters. So, for example, Lisa is as unobservant and self-absorbed in "Murray's Tale" (where she returns from walking Murray with a completely different dog) as she is in the season finale. This is not to say some of the plots are not hilarious, because "Disorientation" is actually very funny. But even by this season, the show feels like it is going with cliche plots for romantic comedies involving couples, like "Paul Is Dead" where another Paul Buchman dies (it's been done on virtually every sitcom) and "Love Letters" where the couple finds letters between a couple whose romance mirrors their own.

The acting in Mad About You Season Two is good, but none of the principles expand upon what we've already seen as their range in this season. As a result, watching this season feels more like returning to good friends, as opposed to watching something truly new.

On DVD, there are no bonus features, so fans do not get anything they do not already get through seeing the syndicated versions of the episodes.

Ultimately, Mad About You is very average in its second season and those who love sitcom television will find it amusing, even if not enduring.

For other works featuring John Pankos, please check out my reviews of:
Morning Glory
Bride Wars
Mad About You - Season 1

5/10

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

© 2013, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Take It Or Leave It Television Volume 1: Mad About You Season 1 On DVD

The Good: Charming, Decent guest starring bits, Decent acting
The Bad: No DVD bonus features, Seems to need the laugh track
The Basics: Mad About You Season 1 gives nothing the syndicated version of the show doesn’t have, but is a good enough romantic comedy that television fans will find something to like.


In the history of the sitcom, I can think of several shows that I watched fairly religiously while they were on the air, but I have absolutely no need to buy on DVD. Arguably at the top of that list would be Mad About You, a show I caught in college in syndication and recently rewatched the first season of on DVD. In rewatching the first, I was struck by how remarkably, overwhelmingly average the show truly was and how little it appealed to me now. For sure, I enjoyed it; Mad About You is a sitcom which peaks early and then dies a slow, long death. So, returning to season one, was like returning to the glory days of a good friendship.

The other thing that stood out for me with rewatching the first season of Mad About You on DVD was how dependent the show seemed to be on the laugh track. My appreciation of shows like Sports Night (reviewed here!) where the show was thrown off by the laugh track (the pacing of the verbal jokes resisted the laugh track) and the success of the humor of animated shows like The Simpsons (season eight reviewed here!) made the laugh track on this live-action sitcom stand out and pretty much scream at me now. In fact, it was weird watching a show where performers waited for the laughs to die before moving on and it struck me as wholly inorganic in this season.

Newlyweds Paul and Jamie Buchman – a film student/director and a producer – are living in New York City (Manhattan) where they work to make time for one another and live through the foibles that result from their miscommunications. This starts with a night alone where both Jamie and Paul forget to cancel prior engagements they had and instead try to squeeze everyone into one night. Because their marriage is still new, they fumble through things like their first major purchase together (in this case buying a sofa) and Paul getting rid of his original apartment which he had only sublet (in this case to Kramer from Seinfeld).

As the season goes on, Paul and Jamie stumble through an extended visit by Jamie’s parents, a maid who has a thing for Paul and Jamie getting annoyed when Paul is not jealous over the new housepainter, who happens to be an ex-boyfriend of Jamie’s. The two struggle when one of Paul’s documentaries is rejected on the same day Jamie gets the funding to produce her next project and they come together sadly when their friends Fran and Mark split up while visiting their apartment. But as their first anniversary rushes closer, it is clear the two are very much in love.

Mad About You is a romantic comedy about love after marriage and it works fairly well. Jamie gets nervous, Paul is levelheaded, but talks off on weird tangents, but it soon becomes apparent that the bond between the two is exceptionally strong. Mad About You in its first season is more often than not a standard romantic comedy which follows a formula where Jamie and Paul have a plan, something comes up and they scramble to fix the problem. They do not so much learn and grow and ironically, the only two real long-term consequences that come out of the first season’s episodes are the split between Mark and Fran and the coming together of Paul and Jamie (which happens midseason as a flashback episode).

This is not to say the show is without charm. It has charm and it even has some originality to it. On Valentine’s Day, Paul and Jamie find themselves locked in their bathroom together and they bond while surviving on antacids and painting toenails (“Love Among The Tiles”). But more often than not, episodes are like “Sunday Times” where Paul and Jamie try to figure out what they might do on a Sunday together before visiting friends and the end of the day decide for them. In the end, the viewer ends up feeling somewhat cheated because nothing truly happens.

The show succeeds as much as it does, then, because of the verbal humor. Paul is a funny guy, played by Paul Reiser. Jamie, played by Helen Hunt, acts more often than not as a straightman to Paul’s absurd gesticulations and her humor is quieter. They both play well off Anne Ramsay’s Lisa (Jamie’s sister), who stops by frequently and has a dry sense of humor and a darker worldview.

Like most good sitcoms, what separates Mad About You from every other sitcom on the air are the characters. In the first season, the principle characters are:

Paul Buchman – A film director and creator, he makes documentaries. He works hard, but is most accomplished with keeping Jamie happy. For Paul, it was love at first sight and now he is working to make the rest of his dreams come true. He finds it difficult to take orders from Jamie when she has the chance to hire him for a project,

Jamie Buchman – Paul’s wife, she is quietly neurotic about change and surprises. She likes things planned, is very organized and gets stressed when things diverge from the plan. Paul has a calming influence on her. She is more amused than annoyed when the maid falls for Paul, but is irked when Paul does not get jealous about her ex-boyfriend painting the apartment,

Lisa Stemple – Jamie’s sister, she is vocally neurotic and takes a while to warm to Paul. She has a friendship with Selby that takes a turn for the uncomfortable on Thanksgiving. She is happy to help Jamie look good for their parents for money (by making herself look bad to them),

Fran Devanow – Paul and Jamie’s friend, she is the controlling wife of Mark who is very unhappy most of the time,

Mark Devanow – Fran’s milquetoast husband, he is a dentist who she basically has to program. Unable to keep her happy, he leaves,

Ira Buchman – Paul’s cousin, he is somewhat shifty, but a generally good guy. He’s friendly, outgoing and he tends to get Paul into more trouble than he keeps him out of,

And Jay Selby – He shows up for a few episodes, comes to Thanksgiving and disappears from the series.

The show features a hilarious recurring role for Steven Wright (Warren the camera man) in the latter half of the season, but largely the show it tight on Paul, Jamie, Fran, Lisa and Mark the first season.

Unfortunately, in this season, there are no DVD bonus features, so it is tough to recommend this as opposed to just catching it in syndication. There’s just enough charm to it for this season, though. Anyone who is looking for a very typical, generally feel-good romantic comedy will find something to enjoy in the first season of Mad About You.

For other situational comedies, please check out my reviews of:
Cheers
Ally McBeal
Dharma & Greg - Season 1

6/10

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

© 2013, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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