I do not usually have much to say about live-action film and TV because I can remember what I see in animation easier, but I will say what I can about this. Imaginary Mary had a very cool and creative idea - a live action-CGI animation hybrid where Alice's imaginary friend returns from her childhood to help her date a divorced dad of three kids. I am disappointed that so many people didn't like this show in its inception. It was nowhere near the worst sitcom I ever saw, but ABC had so little faith in this show that they cut its original 13-episode order down to 9. I think I know why, though. I always liked Imaginary Mary, but one problem I always had with it, one problem that made it hard for me to remember what actually happened in the episodes, was that I can't remember what Mary actually contributed to the plot in each episode. Mary only gets a few scenes in each episode, and every so often she comes up to give Alice some dating advice or other stuff that leads to the conflict or solves it. Mary was funny in most scenes that she had, but now I do not blame ABC for wanting to get rid of this show so quickly if the plots didn't need Mary at all. It is hard to find a good execution for this strange kind of stuff. When the 2015 book The Rest Of Us Just Live Here doesn't know how to make a story about the non-magic kids in a magic world interesting, you realize why no one else does it. Actually, Powerless knew how to make that interesting: by having the DC superheroes or supervillains affect the plots of the "Powerless" people, and that worked out pretty well, so I don't know why that show didn't take off either, but at least I know what makes it better than Imaginary Mary. I do not know where I can find episodes of Imaginary Mary or Powerless nowadays, since it was nearly three years since the last time Imaginary Mary was reviewed here and they are far from the 52-episode syndication minimum, but I really would love to see both of them again to see if they are worthy of becoming a cult classic. Speaking of cult classics, I am very sorry Freaks and Geeks did not work out for NBC. Trying to be a full-hour drama with a comedic setup did not mix.
