Word: carsey
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...schedule are the product of a complex web of commitments, promises and old-fashioned horse trading. Lorimar, the biggest supplier of programming to the three networks, loses a spot on ABC's Friday schedule (Perfect Strangers, shelved until midseason), but gains one (Hangin' with Mr. Cooper) on Tuesdays. Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner, the highly regarded producers of Roseanne and The Cosby Show, have their only CBS show canceled (Davis Rules), but get a new one (The Little Woman) as compensation...
Among the slew of network mid-season replacements, Grand is a good bet for hitdom. Its executive producers are Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner, the team responsible for three of TV's five top-rated shows: Roseanne, The Cosby Show and A Different World. Despite a misfire last fall with Chicken Soup, the duo are as hot as TV producers get. CBS even talked to them in December about taking over the network's programming division. (The negotiations fell through.) Perhaps because of their clout, Grand has been given a near indestructible time period: the half-hour following Cheers...
Mostly it's bad. Though Carsey and Werner are not exactly groundbreakers, their shows have brought a less frenetic, more naturalistic style to the sitcom genre. But Grand (created by Michael Leeson, who wrote The War of the Roses) is packed with plot twists and gag lines, most of them leeringly lame. ("Desmond, have you ever been intimate when the two of you knew you weren't in love?" "I've been intimate when the three of us knew we weren't in love.") The show strives to be a wacky send-up of soap operas, but it lacks...
Potential hit or not, Grand debunks any notion that Carsey and Werner have a magic touch. Their shows until now have been driven by stars with well- developed comic personas. (Chicken Soup failed because it never created a plausible milieu for its star. Jackie Mason as a social worker?) Grand depends instead on an ensemble cast, which seems adrift with characters thrown together as arbitrarily as passengers on a lifeboat. Joel Murray has some funny moments as old man Weldon's flaky son, and Reed gives off sexy sparks as the trailer-park mom. But they don't keep...
...hottest producing team tries for another hit with Grand. But this small- town version of Upstairs, Downstairs proves that Carsey and Werner don't have a magic touch...