Patricia Heaton won an Emmy tonight for her role as Debra Barone on the CBS comedy Everybody Loves Raymond. It was her second win for this role.
I have never been able to watch Everybody Loves Raymond; it never clicked with me. It’s partly because, well, it’s on CBS, which doesn’t hit my demographic. And partly because the show itself seems like a pale rehashing of Roseanne. Perhaps I’m mising something.
Heaton, though, I’ve always considered a first rate actor. Her seminal role
(pardon the pun) was playing Dr. Karen Silverman in the 1980s ABC drama thirtysomething. She debuted in Episode 304, delivering Susannah’s baby, and later returned to deliver Hope and Michael’s son Leo, and as Nancy’s doctor when she went through cancer treatment.
I remember thinking at the time of thirtysomething that she was the kind of OB/GYN I’d like to have around if I ever had kids with someone. As it turned out, Dr. Sproule, our OB/GYN here in Charlottetown last year, came pretty close.
So, congratulations on your Emmy, Ms. Heaton.
Disclaimer: If you think the fact that I am a big thirtysomething fan gives you the right to think less of me, well, think again. I watched every episode. I once bought a TV at Kmart in El Paso, Texas, just so I could watch (I returned the TV the next morning). At the time it was great, groundbreaking TV. And it holds up. So there.
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I have never understood the
I have never understood the popularity of Everybody Loves Raymond either. I simply can’t watch it. I think Thirtysomething was pretty good too, but I think when you’re buying and returning TV’s in El Paso, its maybe time to start reading books instead. But I’m not one to talk. The only time I’ve ever been pulled over by the police I was speeding down the Trans Canada Highway in Kamloops like a madman so I could watch a Maple Leafs playoff game. Garry Valk scored in overtime, but has not, to my knowledge ever appeared on Everybody Loves Raymond.
I watched “thirtysomething”
I watched “thirtysomething” fascinated by what a bunch of freaks these guys in their late 30’s were worrying about jobs, mortgages, relationships. I won’t do a tidy “now I see I have become them”. Its more like “now I really have to fight to not become like that…’cause it’s in my house!!!”. I also do not like “everybody likes raymond.” [Apparently no one asked.] When I watch TV I want sports, I want junkyard wars, I want BBC news or the Naked Chef…once in a while I even want that guy on Sask. public TV that can make anything with his router - shows all about things that happen - makes me want to think or go do something with myself - even if it is to make that catapult. What I can’t stand is the dramatic pap or sitcom pap that exports the idea that life is crisis driven or that problems are solved in sort easy bites. I think Plato and Milton both railed against the dangers of the dramatization of experience. The mass love of Allie MacBeal, Raymond, Fraser, Coronation Street or anything else that numbs the brain at some level plays a part in undermining reality. Ficton may be a truth that has not occurred but so much of TV drama and comedy is Huxley’s “soma” from a “Brave New World”: time stealing, soul sucking pap.
I guess it’s up to me to
I guess it’s up to me to defend ‘Raymond’. It’s a great ensemble comedy that is smartly written and wisely directed. Its pace reminds me of Newhart comedies. They’re smart enough to allow a look, or a silence be a joke in and of itself. I rarely laugh out loud to the television, but I often find myself doing so during this show.
Patricia Heaton plays the best second-fiddle sitcom wife since Edith Bunker and I’m so very pleased that she’s won her second Emmy for that. (not that awards mean anything to me anymore, having been captain of Team Smithee and basically shut out during the recent Cinemaniax gala)
It took me about one-third of its first season to ‘get into’ the show, but now that I am, it’s one of very few programs that I very much enjoy.
As for thirtysomething, I never liked the show. It was too grownup and precious for me when it aired.
I never miss Coronation
I never miss Coronation Street, I can’t explain it either. Something about the ongoing story and 4 new episodes a week. And the way they say ‘crisps’. It doesn’t stimulate my brain either. Its my drug, and its socially acceptable.
I don’t mind dramatic pap or
I don’t mind dramatic pap or sitcom pap that exports the idea that life is crisis driven or that problems are solved in sort easy bites. As everyday life is rarely like this, it is sometimes a nice diversion to watch a make-believe world in which it is.
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