Fred-172

Saw this movie over the weekend.

I like Ben Stiller and I like Jennifer Aniston. However, the two have no chemistry together. They came off as friends, not two people interested in each other.

Alec Baldwin was great, as was Hank Azaria. Stupid gags can work in a movie as long as there is a story and chemistry between the leads (I.E. There's Something About Mary). However, without romantic chemistry between the leads or a decent story the movie is nothing more that a bunch of insepid gags.

I saw the pilot and I have a few comments.

First, Braugher and the other actors are excellent. Braugher appears to be an actor who can carry a project on his own and he does his job well here.

The problem with this show is that it is very dark. It is even darker than "Wonderland" which went under last year. Instead of taking the areas the series does well (the internal torment of a doctor) and combining it with inspiring stories, the show gets dragged down.

The show would be better if it had Braugher's character and the doctor fighting for patients rather than focusing so much on the doctors and how they feel. In the pilot, Gideon told his students not to focus on their own feelings. The show should take his advice.

I'll probably watch it again. However, the show needs to lighten up. M*A*S*H only worked because it combined humor and inspiration with drama. Trapper John, MD was the same way. I hate to lose Braugher but people may soon turn off this show if the show doesn't have the dark clouds clear.

I only saw this show once (it did not last that long anyway). The one episode I saw was excellent and involved a orderly who had to run around an entire hospital looking for a missing finger. The entire episode chronicled this search with the camera going back and forth from the finger to the orderly who was frantically looking for it. It sounds gross but it was absolutely funny.

Baghdad Cafe ran for two seasons on CBS. It had a different plot than the movie. It centered on a desert hotel and cafe owner (played by Whoppi Goldberg) whose husband (played by Cleavon Little) left after an argument. She was then left with the task of running the hotel, the cafe, and taking care of her family. Jean Stapleton played a older woman whose husband threw her out of the car after a argument. Stapleton winds up at the cafe and hotel and an unusual friendship then begins. Secondary characters included Rudy (played by the wonderful James Gammon) a desert artist who becomes romantically involved with Stapleton's character. They first season he just flirted with her, which was funny. The second season brought changes. Exceutive producer Mort Lachman was out and was replaced by Tom Patchett and Kenneth Kauffman. Goldberg's son went to college. Two new characters were added: an African-American Sheriff (played by William Shockley) and Rudy's nephew Dewey (played by Sam Whipple) who became the cook in the restaurant. The show did not see a complete second season and was canceled shortly into the second season. Despite the changes this show went through, the quality did not waver. The writing was excellent and the pairing of Stapleton and Goldberg was magnificent. It also had a magnificent supporting cast. Too bad it only got two seasons. It deserved better.

Have Faith was a funny (although short lived) tv series about a group of inner city priests and the difficulties they deal with in serving the needs of their parishioners. One exceptional cast member was Stephen Furst as Gabe, the young priest who had difficulty with taking confessions. This led to a hilarious episode in which Gabe found out that an arsonist was doing maintenance in the church through a confession. Gabe was then forced to deal with whether or not to place the church at risk by give away the confidence or to go against his oath to keep confessions private. While this would be funny to anyone, for a Catholic the episode was hilarious. Have Faith shows up sometimes on Odyssey. Check it out! It's great!

Leg Work was a clever program that ran on CBS for a few months in 1987. The writing was good and it had an excellent cast that did a great job. Among the actors who would go on to do other things: Complete credited cast:

Margaret Colin (Independence Day) and Francis McDormand(Fargo). What stinks is that this show had enormous potential. However, it was thrown on Saturdays where it died quick. It has shown up on FoxNet and Lifetime once in a while. Hopefully some other network will get smart and pick it up again.

I did not get to see Heart of the City during its original run on ABC in September of 1986. I was fortunate enough to see the program again a few years later on FoxNet when they re-ran old series to fill the off network slots before their syndicated series started. It was an excellent program about a police detective whose wife dies. So he works at night to stay at home during the daytime so he can keep an eye on his teen-aged children. Robert Desiderio was excellent in the lead. An emerging star also appeared in Christina Applegate in the role of Robin Kennedy. The show dealt with issues like sex, the death of a parent and troubled youth. All in all a wonderful, thought provoking piece of work that deserved better. I hope to see the episodes again. Catchy opening music as well.