Tag Archives: Matthew Perry

The Odd Couple: What the Critics Are Saying…

Posted on by

Well, after a less than triumphant return from its NCAA imposed hiatus, CBS has yet to announce whether The Odd Couple will make it on to the Fall 2015 schedule. Apart from losing three million viewers from before and after the hiatus, The Odd Couple has received overwhelmingly mixed reviews, leaning towards the negative side. In order to take a closer look at the reviews for The Odd Couple, I have consulted the online review aggregator, MetaCritic (http://www.metacritic.com/tv/the-odd-couple-2015).

According to MetaCritic, The Odd Couple has received 20 mixed reviews, 5 negative reviews and 1 positive review. Based upon the reviews of 26 professional print critics, MetaCritic has given The Odd Couple a score of 42. Here are some highlights from the critics:

Newsday’s Diane Werts best shared my sentiments, writing “Their [Matthew Perry and Thomas Lennon’s] Odd Couple feels like the kind of time-filling time killer that’s chasing viewers to other options.”

Entertainment Weekly’s Jeff Jenson wrote, “There is a kind of bad show that might be the saddest kind of bad show. It’s the show that strands talented actors known for being funny on a sitcom that isn’t funny at all.” This confirms a number of the reviews which seem to feel that The Odd Couple has all of the elements of a successful series, but they all fail to come together in the end.

TV Guide’s Matt Roush, also felt that the show is an example of mediocrity, “There’s not a lot to love in this strained, often deafening update of the Neil Simon perennial.”

Therefore, coupled with the critics’ reaction and the low ratings, it looks like CBS should replace The Odd Couple with something that has more originality and substance, as well as the potential to become another 10 year-wonder like How I Met Your Mother and Two and a Half Men.

Is This the Beginning of the End for The Odd Couple?

Posted on by

Well, after a hiatus for the NCAA Basketball tournament, The Odd Couple did not have a triumphant return to the CBS Thursday night line-up. Despite its lead-in from the hit comedy, The Big Bang Theory, the Matthew Perry and Thomas Lennon vehicle, has hit a major speed-bump. As TV Media Insights succinctly put it, “While no one expects any show to hold the “Big Bang” lead-in, slippage of this magnitude is too severe. Five-week household overnight track for “The Odd Couple”: 8.1/13 – 7.1/11 – 7.6/12 – 6.6/11 – 5.8/10.” (http://www.tvmediainsights.com/tv-ratings/cbs-tops-thursday-recent-entry-odd-couple-slipping/). Therefore, without some major adjustments, The Odd Couple may find itself off of the CBS fall schedule. The drop in audience does not surprise me, because on a night with such unique comedies on CBS, The Odd Couple, interrupts the Thursday night CBS comedy flow. Compared to The Big Bang Theory and Mom, The Odd Couple appears to be derivative, very formulaic and more importantly, mediocre. Nostalgia is big on TV now, we see that with revivals of shows, such as Hawaii Five-O and Girl Meets World and even Hot In Cleveland taps into this, through its cast, featuring four sitcom veterans. However, this version of The Odd Couple, is lacking the magic spark that gives viewers that warm fuzzy feeling that they first had when watching the original 1970s version, coupled with that feeling of satisfaction of watching something modern and contemporary. I would not be surprised if The Odd Couple is missing from the CBS 2015-2016 schedule.

The Odd Couple: Critical Reaction

Posted on by

In last week’s blog post, I took a look at the ratings for the February 19th premiere of The Odd Couple. This week, I’m examining the critical reaction. At this point, it’s anybody’s guess, as the critics were mixed. However, many of them added that regardless of the quality of the show, The Odd Couple has a 50/50 shot of being renewed for a second season. As a fan of the original version of The Odd Couple, I find the new version to be lacking the original spark that made the Tony Randall-Jack Klugman incarnation so entertaining and successful.

In his review, Entertainment Weekly writer Jeff Jensen eloquently hit upon the problem with the revamped version of The Odd Couple, “There is a kind of bad show that might be the saddest kind of bad show. It’s the show that strands talented actors known for being funny on a sitcom that isn’t funny at all. The Odd Couple has Matthew Perry, Thomas Lennon, Yvette Nicole Brown, Dave Foley and more. You’d never know that they’re perfectly capable of making you laugh if you hadn’t seen their previous work, because their current show is, again, not funny.”

In the end, only time and the numbers will give us certainty on The Odd Couple’s future, but with a general overall feeling that it is just mediocre fare, it looks like it won’t be joining its CBS predecessors, The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men as a runaway hit.