I honestly can't figure out why the critics are not only disparaging of this show, but actually aggressively hostile toward it. I would be the last person to claim "Yes, Dear" is a classic of television comedy, but it is a consistently funny show, with a very simple, archetypal conflict. I get regular laughs from "Yes, Dear," regularly trashed by critics, while I've never laughed a single time at "Everybody Loves Raymond," which critics slavishly promote. YD is about a pair of couples, two sisters and their husbands, who live together in Los Angeles. The older sister and her husband are lazy, irresponsible slobs who live in the guest house of the younger sister and her husband, who are fastidious to the point of neurosis. Most of the comedy derives from this dichotomy. The husbands work for a movie studio (another source of laughs), and both couples have children. All three sets of grandparents are played by familiar comedic character actors and show up several times each season. Obviously, personal taste governs what one watches on television (something critics have generally forgotten), but if ever a show has gotten a raw deal from the critics, "Yes, Dear" is the one.
