HamishLinklater-related stories
Posted Nov 26th 2009 1:32PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S05E09) I'm so glad
Hank sucked, because it allowed me to establish a new two-hour block of comedy on Wednesday nights. Just substitute
Christine for
Hank, and then flip over to
The Middle and ABC for the rest of the night. What a satisfying night of laughs.
There was no Thanksgiving trimmings for
Christine this year; instead it was date night. And while the episode did fall victim to some predictable set-ups, it was still a lot of fun to watch. I particularly liked the twists and turns of Barb's date with Dave. She dragged Christine along to make sure Dave didn't propose to her.
Meanwhile, now that New Christine is pregnant, Richard is ready to woo her as well. But he needn't worry about cleaning up or even trying. Just get her into bed: that's where he really shines.
Continue reading Review: The New Adventures of Old Christine - I Love Woo, I Hate Woo
Posted Nov 19th 2009 12:18PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S05E08) Ah, Dave Foley. His sad sack Tom has been good for a laugh more than a few times, and he was used to good comic effect again this week. In the double blind-date scenario with Christine and Richard, his counterpart was the lovely Jennifer Grey, real-life wife to Clark Gregg.
The New Adventures of Old Christine is a rare comedy in that it can work in guest stars like this without it detracting from either the ongoing character moments, or taking the spotlight away from the main cast. Too often when a show gets deeper into its run, like
Will & Grace in its final years, it becomes a cavalcade of celebrity guest-stars, as if the writers have run out of ways to keep things fresh with their own core group.
Christine has mixed things up just this season by breaking up Richard and New Christine and having Matthew move in with Richard in a swinging bachelor pad. And they shook it up again this week.
Continue reading Review: The New Adventures of Old Christine - Love Means Never Having to Say You're Crazy
Posted Nov 12th 2009 12:35PM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S05E07) I guess the fate of Marion Ross was handled off-screen, because Matthew and Richard are settling into her old digs, and she was nowhere to be seen this episode. Now that I think about it, though, she could be shacking up in Matthew's old digs out in the backyard. It would make for a pretty funny callback to have her character pop back up. Maybe even act as if Christine didn't even know she'd moved in back there.
I wasn't as impressed with the forced obligatory "we're different but now we're roommates" storyline for Matthew and Richard. Hopefully, now that it's out of the way, the writers have some ideas of some fun things they can do with the mismatched pair. In five seasons, we've not seen a great deal of interaction between them, but their differences could make for some good comedy.
Continue reading Review: The New Adventures of Old Christine - Nuts
Posted Nov 5th 2009 12:50AM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S05E06) Little Ritchie is growing up so fast! This week he's going to a school dance ... with the most popular girl in school!? Could Christine's whole world be changing? How can the meanie moms be mean to her if her son is dating the most popular girl in school? How can Christine screw this up? By being herself.
Meanwhile, Richard realizes he can no longer live at New Christine's house -- which is really his house -- so he starts to look for a new place to live, and finds a place where I'd sure as hell want to live. But there's a major problem with it, and he and Matthew have to tackle that before anyone can move in.
All in all, I think
Christine is continuing a solid run of quality episodes. It helps that of the shows on ABC's Wednesday night comedy block, this veteran is up against
Hank. And Louis-Dreyfus and friends are doing a fine job of beating it week after week.
Continue reading Review: The New Adventures of Old Christine - The Curious Case of Britney B
Posted Oct 22nd 2009 3:28AM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S05E05) This could turn out to be the single most important episode of
The New Adventures of Old Christine. Dare I say it was "a very special episode of"
The New Adventures of Old Christine? Oh, who am I kidding, things will never change, but isn't that why we love it.
It was a lot of fun seeing Eric McCormack as Matthew's mentor in therapy, as well as his office-mate. That's an easy way to set him up for a recurring role on the show for awhile. And they gave him a shady past, which is an easy way to write him off the show at a moment's notice.
He was there to give Christine someone new to bounce her craziness off of. I absolutely loved their first scene together. Christine all hopped up on diet pills from the '70s, dressed like
Maude and working as a temporary fill-in as Matthew's secretary. Every week Julia Louis-Dreyfus cracks me up with just how undignified she's willing to look for this role.
Continue reading Review: The New Adventures of Old Christine - Dr. Little Man
Posted Oct 8th 2009 3:27AM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S05E03) I don't think it's giving anything away to say that the entire cold open to this episode of
The New Adventures of Old Christine was done in the nude. I kept expecting Daniel Radcliffe to come traipsing through Christine's bathroom door. And for the record, I don't think I'd ever be comfortable enough around any ex to be able to have a normal conversation with both of us completely nude.
I've been a fan of this show since the first episode, and in all honesty, as we're sitting here in the fifth season, I'm surprised every year that it comes back. Not because I don't think it's a good show, but because it never has a huge audience and it seems to fly completely under the radar. And I say that with Julia Louis-Dreyfus having been nominated for her work on
this show.
Continue reading The New Adventures of Old Christine: The Mole
Posted Jul 15th 2009 4:29PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, How I Met Your Mother, The Office, 30 Rock, Awards, Weeds, Emmys, Reality-Free, The Big Bang Theory
When it comes to the Primetime Emmy nominations, there are scads of terrific supporting performances to choose from in the comedy field. The difficulty is narrowing it down to just six actors and six actresses (which is better than last year's five each). Maybe the Emmys should take a page from the Academy Awards and double the number of nominations -- this year's Best Picture will include ten noms. That's not going to happen, but that doesn't mean my wish list discussion can't mention all those worthy comedy performers.
Last year's comedy winners,
Jean Smart for
Samantha Who? and Jeremy Piven for
Entourage, were both multiple winners. In Jean's case, it wasn't all for the same role, but Jeremy has been pulling a John Larroquette/Don Knotts in this category. (Larroquette and Knotts dominated this category; the former winning for
Night Court from 1985-88, while Knotts won five times for
The Andy Griffith Show from 1961-67). My wish list would start by shaking things up.
Continue reading Emmy Wish List: Supporting Categories - Comedy
Posted Feb 16th 2009 11:09AM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, American Idol, How I Met Your Mother, Judges, TV Squad Lists, Chuck, Reaper, Reality-Free, The Big Bang Theory, TV Squad Ten
So what's a second banana? Well they're certainly not second best. No, in fact they're often the main reason to tune into a particular show. Not because the show's major plotlines revolve around them, in fact they generally don't, but because they liven up every scene they're in. Virtual show-stealers, a good second banana can turn a generic sitcom or drama into television gold. The ultimate wingman on television, there was no greater second banana than my man Barney Fife, brilliantly played by Don Knotts on
The Andy Griffith Show, and later
Mayberry R.F.D.
When it came time to put together this list, I wondered if I'd be able to find ten viable and qualified bananas on the airwaves today. But I guess I needn't have worried. It looks like Barney was an inspiration (in more ways than one) to the current crop of second bananas. They litter their peels all over the television landscape, leaving us to trip over in laughter time and time again at their antics. But how do they stack up? Who's the biggest fruit in the tree? There's only one way to find out!
Continue reading TV Squad Ten: TV's top second bananas
Posted May 24th 2008 8:03AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Industry, Lost, Reality-Free
Sometimes you can tell the importance of a pilot by who the network chooses to direct it. In the case of the Hamish Linklater script,
The Prince of Motor City, ABC Studios has inked Jack Bender, a Lost helmer, to direct the pilot. To me, that means action and drama, not to mention enthusiasm from the parent company.
Continue reading Lost director Bender assigned to Prince of Motor City
Posted May 13th 2008 8:29PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Cancellations, Pickups and Renewals, Shark, Reality-Free
CBS doesn't announce its new schedule till tomorrow, but the news is spilling out everywhere about what's in and what's out.
The New Adventures of Old Christine has been given a 22-episode commitment for a third season; Shark has been sunk. For fans of the James Woods legal drama -- and I know there are lots of you out there because you've posted here -- my heart goes out to you. It was a good show, but it seems that CBS has four new dramas on deck for next season (that we have heard they're announcing tomorrow), so something had to give. It's likely that the choice came down between
The Unit and
Shark, with
The Unit getting the renewal.
As for Christine, I say "Yeah!" I love Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Hamish Linklater (Matthew, her brother on the show) and would have been really upset if CBS let the show get away. If the network had passed on the sitcom, ABC was reportedly very, very interested in taking it on. They had visions of pairing
Samantha Who? with
Christine for an all-girl sitcom hour. That's not going to happen now because Julia is staying put on CBS.
Whether the show remains on Monday nights, however, is still to be determined. For the past year, it has mostly shared the 9:30 slot with
Rules of Engagement, which has also been renewed. Some reporters are suggesting that CBS could be launching a second sitcom night.
Posted Mar 27th 2008 3:07PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Pickups and Renewals
With the thought of another year of
According to Jim on the air, it's with excitement that I report that new shows may be coming to take its place.
ABC has ordered two pilots:
Prince of Motor City and an untitled David Hemingson dramedy. The former, which purports to have Shakespearean roots, comes from writer Jessica Goldberg and writer/actor Hamish Linklater, better known around here as Matthew on
The New Adventures of Old Christine.
Continue reading ABC orders two more pilots
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