I absolutely love this show! So depressed that they cancelled it. I actually only just started to watch it in approximately the last year or so, as a result I have quite a lot of reruns still to watch! Yippee! But of course like a lot of reruns they are played out of order, so it is interesting to see the difference in the older to more recent eps.
The show started with 1 married couple, 1 engaged couple, and David Spade typecast as usual as the single and sleazy playboy. David Spade is probably why I didn't watch the show to start with, because I've never liked anything he was in- till now! This show is great, I love all the characters even David Spade's. I notice that some reviewers here like some of the actors but not others, I've certainly seen shows like that, but this isn't one of them, I think all the actors/actresses are equally talented and their characters are all brilliant. However if you watch the end seasons you won't like the engaged couple, but don't blame it on the actors it was the writers fault, they started the show off brilliantly, the guy (Adam) was a little bit metrosexual and a bit naive (which was a nice foil to his pal the married man who is a very cynical, conservative, male chauvinist type) but really Adam and Jen (his fiancée) were really great characters who were madly in love, however fast forward to the end seasons and the writers have morphed Adam into a complete twit, he's beyond metrosexual and almost camp (one late episode has him being a cheerleader who doesn't seem to understand why his fiancée is embarrassed about this), he doesn't get the point of sarcasm because he is so stupid, contrast this to an earlier season where Russell (David Spade) uses the word ironic to describe something stupid he has done and Adam as quick as a flash says "no your pronouncing it wrong, it's pronounced moronic!" So fairly obviously Adam's character at the beginning was capable of being witty, but the later episodes the writers have transformed him into a complete idiot, then the fact that they have made Adam such a twit leaves his fiancée Jen nowhere to go except to be forever rolling her eyes and basically phoning it in. Though the actor playing Adam still bravely gives it his best. I get the impression that the writers just didn't know what to do with Adam and Jen anymore.
You might wonder then if it is worth watching the later seasons, well it is because during this time they introduced Timmy, Russell's new Indian assistant. Timmy absolutely steals the show in these later eps. Russell and Timmy are like the odd couple, in fact I think this amazing dynamic that they have and the brilliant story lines written for this "couple" is the reason for the engaged couples demise, because the show then really becomes mainly about Russell and Timmy and the married couple (who still have plenty to do but are a little overshadowed as well), and all of this leaves the engaged couple out on the sidelines. I'm not sure what I prefer because when I watch the older episodes I miss Timmy, but then again enjoy watching the dynamics of the engaged couple versus the married couple. So the later eps are a little different from the beginning but I enjoy all the eps pretty much equally (except I really feel sorry for the actors playing Adam and Jen in the later eps!)
Another introduced character near the end is Liz (Russell's girlfriend) but thankfully she didn't last too long because I wasn't too keen on her character.
Oh and I haven't mentioned the married couple much, but they are really the heart and soul of the show and have brilliant story lines, and the guy Jeff, famous as having previously been a well known bit character on Seinfeld, plays a similar hilarious macho type, with his long suffering mostly sensible wife Audrey. In real life this couple really should be divorced but that makes them perfect for comedy!
Of course a lot of the comedy is clichéd as they are all the usual stereotypes of older cynical couple versus naive young lovers, but it is incredibly well written, and the reason stereotypes exist in comedy is because these are people we all have met! What is unique though I think is how they developed Timmy, still a bit of stereotyping but a little different from the direction you would expect and brilliant because of this, and the way the end ep resolves Russell and Timmy's relationship is jaw dropping in its comic unpredictability. So so sad this hilarious show has come to an end.
I would give this show a 10 but must give it a 9, in sympathy to "Adam" who basically had his testicles removed by the writers.
