Tuesday, August 17, 2021

Thoughts on *Mad About You*, episodes 127-131

 

via IMDB


"It's one night of bad for, you know, I think a lifetime of good."
"You really believe that in your guts?"
"With all my guts."


-- I'll speak my peace about "The Conversation" in a moment. Right now, I want to complain about the past-its-expiration-date Buchman saga. Luckily for me, the arc doesn't exactly dominate the two episodes it's included in. And in one case, it actually provides the better story.
-- Unfortunately, it's not the first episode, "The New Friend." Directed by Gordon Hunt, it has a script credited to Lissa Levin (WKRP in Cincinnati, among others) and Maria Semple (it's the last Mad About You script she's credited for). The story is credited to David Steven Simon, who goes back and forward a ways with Paul Reiser. Simon wrote for My Two Dads and co-created There's ... Johnny! I guess longtime associates can get away with a lot, because "Friend" features one of the least flattering depictions of Paul.
-- The Buchmans have a new neighbor, Sarah (Mare Winningham). She's a single mother of three kids ranging from infancy to elementary-age. While Jamie makes sure Mabel has all the food she could possibly need or enough clothes on hand for any change in the weather, Sarah's feeding her gang crackers and fruit from her pockets and bags and saying being in the cold isn't so bad. Sarah's not negligent or poverty-stricken. She's just been there and done that. Jamie insists to Paul she will not become that type of parent. Paul doesn't have time to self-righteously look down on Sarah, because he's too busy thinking about himself.
-- Paul's won an award! Not just any award, but a Genius Award! He's considered a genius! Paul spends the rest of the episode considering this. Buchman has a decent tagline ("Come meet the family."), but is it the tagline of a work created by a genius? I honestly came this close to skipping over the rest of the episode. YOU GOT AWAY WITH MAKING A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT YOUR FUCKING FAMILY, PAUL! QUIT JERKING YOURSELF OFF! Ira, who listens to Paul's pretentious suggestions involving leafs off of family trees and drops in the rain barrel of humanity, grabs an item off of his desk. "Buchman. For external use only."
-- Sarah does media relations for the New York Liberty and is willing to go on a double date with the Buchmans and Ira. "If he's straight, I'm in." Shortly after that, Jamie witnesses how Sarah literally snaps baby Nora out of a crying fit after Murray barked. Sarah thinks Ira is dreamy, but he's "loco for Lobo." He also gets in a few more digs at Paul's pretentiousness. "Who exactly did you beat out for this award?" Still, Ira can be thick, too. He was unaware it was a double date, which is why he was happy to get Rebecca Lobo's number. Sarah says she's going to go over, look Rebecca right in the knees and find out what's up.
-- Honestly, aside from Paul's ego trip, "Friend" isn't a bad episode. It's largely structured like a traditional sitcom. Of course Jamie is going to end up walking a mile in Sarah's shoes and adopt her parenting style when the babies are fussy, the kids are bratty and Murray's barking. Of course Chekhov's gun fires, in this case with the electric bill that Paul forgot to pay. Of course Sarah is going to do something that in reality would get her fired. She has the organist (Billy Barnes again) play "Roll Out the Barrel" when polka-hating Rebecca is trying to make a free throw. The only plot element that doesn't get a satisfying enough button is Paul and the award. He alienates his dinner guests (Sylvia: "There's genius and then there's wise guy.") before observing, "They have never gotten me." I was hoping that the actual winner was Paul Bychman.
-- From the old school to the self-consciously new school ... Bottle and two-hander episodes had been done before and after "The Conversation," directed by Gordon Hunt and written by Victor Levin. I didn't watch "Conversation" when it premiered, but I do remember it receiving a good amount of hype (They're going to do an episode in real time, and it's going to be serious and have no commercial breaks!) and backlash almost immediately after (Why did they do an episode almost entirely featuring Mabel crying?). The premise is simple: Paul and Jamie are going to sleep train Mabel. No matter how hard she cries, they aren't going to pick her up. They can still verbally comfort her, but only for one minute at a time, not together and after intervals with increasing lengths. Five minutes is followed by 10 minutes is followed by 15 minutes ... What will happen first: the next day, Mabel falling asleep or Paul and/or Jamie cracking?
-- Jamie insists that the experience will be good for Mabel in the long run. She needs to learn to be able to comfort herself. Fran and Mark apparently never sleep trained Ryan, and look how he's turned out. Paul questions why he and Jamie wouldn't want Mabel to come to them when she's upset. The first interval passes, with Paul explaining that he and Jamie are doing what they're doing "because a sadistic man from Columbia University said we had to." Alone again, Mabel resumes crying. Jamie guilt trips Paul into not watching TV. (Like I said, she can be really insufferable about parenting.) It turns out that Jamie won 500 pounds of rigatoni. She was the 500th customer at the supermarket. They'll have a dinner. "For who, the Three Tenors?" Paul reveals to Jamie that he's healthy, just shrinking.
-- Mabel's crying is the worst sound Paul's ever heard. He and Jamie talk about their parents. It's not likely that Burt and Sylvia ever "did this" to him. Gus and Theresa were disciplinarians, Jamie admits. (Lately Jamie and/or Helen Hunt has been vaguely implying Jamie had a traumatic childhood -- and bear in mind, "The Conversation" is directed by Helen's own father.) During her minute to comfort Mabel, Jamie insists that if they get through the night, every day moving forward will make up for it. Mabel appears to be going off to sleep -- and she starts crying again. Uh-oh ... Murray's also in the bedroom. There's a nice bit of levity (you know, while the BABY'S STILL CRYING), where a crawling Paul gets Murray to follow him out.
-- Paul wants to look at a home in Nyack. He and Jamie are still sharing a room with Mabel. Anywhere in Connecticut would be too close to Jamie's parents. Jamie wants Mabel to be raised in the city, citing culture and diversity and what not. Jamie's upset that she and Paul are apparently incompatible as parents. (Nah, you're just mad that Paul's not bending to your will. Sorry, but Jamie's been getting on my nerves about this sort of stuff as MAY progresses.) Jamie's not feeling so good. What is her gut saying? Should she and Paul go in and comfort Mabel? There's some time left in the interval, Paul and Jamie feel horrible, and ... Mabel's asleep. She's gotten her first lesson in self-reliance and ... "We broke her heart." Paul and Jamie can't wake her up. They also can't turn back the clock, even though Jamie wishes she could. If "The Conversation" had gotten a better response, would there have been a less-dramatic sequel involving Mabel's toilet training?
-- Another rite of passage occurs, with considerably less tsuris, in "Breastfeeding." I'm talking, of course, about the last appearance of Ryan Devanow, who is unfazed about seeing Jamie nurse Mabel. Actually, "Breastfeeding" features Leila Kenzle's third-to-last appearance as Fran (although for some reason her credit's been reinstated). The episode's B plot involves Ira betting against Ryan's hockey team, the Turtle Bay Rangers. That's sleazy enough, but it's not helped by Ira having been the one who provided the boys with their uniforms. The Rangers lose to the Murray Hill Red Wings, Fran and the boys confront Ira (in unison, "OUR HEARTS ARE BROKEN, MR. BUCHMAN."), he throws Marvin and an innocent Paul under the bus and Fran breaks with the guys.
-- Directed by David Steinberg and written by Lissa Levin, "Breastfeeding" features a good performance by Paul Reiser. Paul is uncomfortable that Jamie continues to nurse Mabel. Not only does she do it in public, but there's also the fact that it's something he can't share with Mabel. "I'm breastfeeding my child, will you get over yourself?" Jamie promises that she'll bottle feed Mabel "soon." Paul ends up giving Mabel her first bottle. "It's father's milk." Jamie, whose subway ride was delayed thanks to Al Gore's visit to New York, is actually relieved Paul fed Mabel. He can't resist pretending that Mabel bit him the way she occasionally bites Jamie's nipple.
-- The episode's A plot involves Jamie's discomfort over Theresa's "gentleman friend." Patrick (John Michael Higgins) is a performer in Lord of the Dance. An Irishman, Patrick has been in America for six months and is staying indefinitely. Theresa observes that he's a dancer and she was a dancer. Patrick is also several decades younger than Theresa. Jamie wonders what their relationship would be considered. Dating? Courting? Kidding? Shortly after, Jamie says it's not a December-May pairing, it's December-early March. Mother and daughter make up while backstage (and briefly onstage) at Radio City Music Hall.
-- Jamie and Theresa accidentally taking part in Lord of the Dance takes up about a minute of time in "Breastfeeding." It would have take up the entire third act of an episode of I Love Lucy. Some old-school sitcom shenanigans occur in "Good Old Reliable Nathan," guest starring Nathan Lane (who owes his stage name -- he was born Joseph Lane -- and his first Tony Award nomination to Guys and Dolls). It's directed by Michael Lembeck, with a story by Susan Dickes (who hung around through the NBC run) and Jonathan Leigh Solomon and a teleplay by Victor Levin. The setup is labored, but the grand finale's pretty funny.
-- Paul and Jamie are having the apartment baby-proofed. He's also speaking to Prof. Nathan Twilley's class on "Violence in Film." Your guess is as good as mine as to why a documentary filmmaker is speaking about movie violence. Paul plans to talk about Pulp Fiction, since it appeals to college students. Jamie reveals that she and Nathan "knew" each other when she went to Yale. It wasn't a professor taking advantage of a student, Jamie says. She pursued Nathan, flirting with him with the "This is the church, this is the steeple ..." hand and finger gestures. Anyway, Jamie lost her virginity to Nathan. Nat's uncomfortable about knowing this, not to mention that Nathan had a stare that could drive Jamie to orgasm. Jamie and Nathan had a one-nighter, a great one-nighter, but only a one-nighter. He, of course, doesn't immediately remember her.
-- Seeing Jamie in the same seat as before jogs Nathan's memory. He's uncomfortable that Paul knows he was responsible for Jamie's "world premiere" and is certain Paul is filled with rage. Not helping matters is that Paul singles out Marsellus' revenge on the guy who gave Mia a foot rub. Nathan is forced to follow through on having lunch with the Buchmans, his paranoia growing by the moment.
-- Paul accidentally hits Nathan with a closet door. The baby-proofer left his nail gun, which goes off in Paul's hands and destroys a vase that Nathan was standing next to. Ira shows up after sleeping with Cheryl Gendelman (Melinda McGraw), whose family's burial plot is next to the Buchmans'. Her cousin Leon had a final request of being buried sideways, which means Paul would have to give up his space. Paul vehemently protests that he wants -- needs -- that burial location. Nathan, of course, hears this. He once again gets hit in the face by a door, as well as thrown against the Buchmans' oven before having his hands land on their freezing ice cube trays. Shortly after, Nathan tries to keep from drinking the wine Paul poured for him. Paul can't have it because he's allergic and Jamie can't have it because she's still breastfeeding. Trapped in the kitchen, Nathan pulls the phone off the wall and is unable to escape through the window. He runs into Nat, who "cleans up messes." The elevator is out of order, but Nathan doesn't care. He pushes the button and falls into the shaft. Luckily, the elevator car is directly below the entrance. Descending to the lobby, Nathan bids farewell to the Buchmans. Seriously, the finale's right out of Laverne & Shirley.
-- Finally, "Separate Planes," directed by Gordon Hunt and written by Andy Glickman (who also stayed through MAY's NBC run). Paul and Jamie both have things to do in California. She's a bridesmaid, complete with ugly "Sunday salmon" dress, and he's got movie meetings. They're going to take separate flights, so that way Mabel wouldn't be an orphan if one of them goes down. They've also doubled their chances of something bad happening, Paul points out. Burt's cold keeps "Nana and Pop-Pop" from watching Mabel (a pissed off Sylvia tells Burt he's spending the weekend sleeping in a closet). Joan and Debbie are in Maine and in their boyhood, Ira let Paul's turtle die, so Paul ends up taking Mabel with him.
-- Jamie's seatmates are Muriel and Irwin (Alison Martin and Dean Cameron), traveling with their son, Byron. Muriel's just as obnoxious as she was in "The Birth," gloating over how good "The Good Room" was, laughing at Jamie's separate planes superstition (Irwin considered the same thing until the couple "agreed" to Muriel's decision), spoiling the book Jamie's reading and once again getting something that Jamie wanted (in this case, the flight's last chicken meal). Jamie has four words for Byron: "Good luck," followed by "Boarding school." Over on Paul's flight, Mabel's crying scares away his seat mate, Leon (Hiram Kasten). Once calmed down, she charms fellow passenger Earl (Rick Overton), and more importantly, the flight attendants. JoNell Kennedy is especially funny as an attendant who's cooing over Mabel and is accommodating and all-smiles so long as Paul stays in coach.
-- Never underestimate the power of a cute baby. Paul gets the flight attendant to show Buchman to studio executive Lindsay Krbnsk (Rita Wilson). She loves the movie and even allows Paul to join her in first class. They're having caviar. (Paul was previously able to get Earl some of the first class-quality orange slices, the kind that have no pith. Paul's brass ring rusts when Lindsay realizes Paul used baby Mabel to manipulate the flight attendant. She just cannot reward that kind of behavior. Lindsay is a woman of ethics, a woman in show business. She and the flight attendant both shoo Paul away. Reunited, Paul and Jamie agree that flying separately was a disaster.
-- Great Moments in Shilling: Lindsay works for Columbia Pictures, of course.
-- The Buchmans Go Broadway: The ill-fated double lunch date in "Breastfeeding" takes place at a restaurant that has most of the same posters as Riff's. I think the only new ones I noticed were for I'm Not Rappaport, My Fair Lady, Me and My Girl and Man of La Mancha.
-- Musical Moment: "Something in the Night" and "Racing in the Street" were briefly featured in the original broadcast of "The Conversation." They don't appear in the version streaming on Amazon. I have Mad About You on DVD, but didn't check to see if the songs were included. Paul does sing "K-K-K-Katy" to Jamie in that same episode. He thought his grandfather had a stutter until he heard Rudy Vallée also sing it like that.
-- Hey, It's 1997-1998!: The New York Liberty doesn't have famous fans on the level of Jack Nicholson and the Lakers. Their games include the likes of Fyvush Finkel, RuPaul, Bella Abzug and Rick Springfield ("Friend"). Al Gore apparently did not actually visit New York and appear on Late Night with Conan O'Brien in early 1998, but the "Got Milk?" campaign was still going on ("Breastfeeding").
-- Unanswered Questions: Why does Jamie have a picture of Tom Brokaw ("Conversation")? Whatever happened to that guy Jamie was engaged to in 1979 ("Riding Backwards"), which granted, would have been when she was 16 ("Nathan")?
-- Continuity Corner: Jamie, formerly in public relations, doesn't react to Sarah's similar job ("Friend"). More proof that Sharon Buchman doesn't exist anymore. She's not included in Paul's gloating phone calls to his family ("Friend") or as someone who could watch Mabel ("Planes"). They must have added more insulation between Paul and Jamie's bedroom wall and the Conways' apartment, since Hal and Maggie, who used to be able to hear the couple's lovemaking, don't complain about Mabel's incessant crying ("Conversation"). In that same episode, Jamie's use of "my parents" slightly implies that Gus and Theresa are still a couple, a point contradicted in "Breastfeeding." Also in "Breastfeeding," we learn that Marvin lives with his mother and that Mabel is three months old.
-- Awards Watch: "The Conversation" was Paul Reiser's Emmy submission. He lost to Kelsey Grammer. Nathan Lane was nominated for "Good Old Reliable Nathan," but as mentioned, the award for guest acting in a sitcom went to Mel Brooks as Uncle Phil. The 55th Golden Globe Awards aired amid this batch. Paul and Helen Hunt received their last nominations for playing Paul and Jamie. He lost to Michael J. Fox, she lost to Calista Flockhart. On the other hand, Helen won for As Good as It Gets.
-- Supporting Scores: Ira and Burt are in three episodes each, followed by Sylvia in two and Debbie, Marvin and Nat in one each.
-- Before the Credits: Paul has trouble calling a Chinese place ("Friend"). Paul is more impressed by the idea of one continuous shot than Jamie is ("Conversation"). Mabel's pooping may or may not have been her review of a story Paul read ("Breastfeeding").
-- Under the Credits: Rebecca easily beats Ira at basketball ("Friend"). Paul and Jamie learn how to prepare shepherd's pie from an actual shepherd ("Breastfeeding"). Paul attempts to emulate Nathan's orgasm-inducing look ("Nathan"). Leon has had enough of Mabel and escapes from mid-air ("Planes").
-- Also of note: During the span of this batch, As Good as It Gets opened and Helen hosted SNL for the second time. She appeared in four sketches with recurring characters. The opening had Marty Culp & Bobbi Mohan-Culp caroling (with the classic segue from "Two turtle doves" to "When Doves Cry"), followed by "Delicious Dish" with Helen showing off a gingerbread "Graceland" (and Margaret Jo and Terry casually revealing that they nearly committed suicide after attempting to replicate Mount Vernon). Later, The Ladies Man and skanky Charlene answered callers' questions before finally, the Roxbury Guys got professional help for being too aggressive with female club goers. Helen, their therapist, has a similar boyfriend played by Jack Nicholson (who also appeared in the monologue, built around the cast impersonating him). If that wasn't enough, Hanson was the musical guests and appeared in a sketch with Helen and Will holding them hostage in an elevator while "MMMBop" played on a loop. Good concept, aided by the fact that "MMMBop" was actually Hanson's first song that evening. Oh yeah, and the episode also included the classic TV Funhouse with Jesus being touched by A Charlie Brown Christmas, the fan favorite goodnights from Rockefeller Center's ice rink and Norm McDonald's last Weekend Update.
-- Ratings Roundup: A range of 10.7 for "Breastfeeding" to 12.3 for "Conversation." Beginning in January 1998, MAY's competition was JAG, Moesha, the FOX movie, The Drew Carey Show reruns and now that The WB had Tuesday programming, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

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