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Review of “The Ellen Show: The Complete Series”

Nods to DeGeneres’ first sitcom occur in episodes such as “Chain Reaction,”?Ø in which Ellen Richmond starts a petition drive to close down a chain restaurant, P.J. Knockers, modeled after Hooters; Ellen Morgan fought a similar battle with chain bookstores as an independent bookstore owner in Ellen. (Fans of DeGeneres’s dancing on her talk show will enjoy it when it occasionally happens on The Ellen Show.)

With ingredients like these, as well as the indisputable comedic talents of DeGeneres, Mull, Leachman, and the rest of the cast (Jim Gaffigan as Rusty, Emily Rutherfurd as sister Catherine, and Kerri Kenney as the home economics teacher), and the writing and creative direction of Carol Leifer (Seinfeld) and Mitchell Hurwitz (The Golden Girls and later, Arrested Development), The Ellen Show should have been a hit.

It wasn’t.

Viewers of the fall 2001 TV season weren’t particularly kind to debut comedies. In the early post-9/11 days, familiar favorites like Friends and Spin City provided comforting entertainment, while then-new dramas such as 24, Alias, and HBO’s Six Feet Under were captivating audiences who weren’t glued to news programs.

But the failure of The Ellen Show at that time probably had more to do with the fact that it just wasn’t as funny as it should have been with the creative talent it possessed. Much of the humor involves (mostly gentle) small town bashing (At a mall: “Here, Old Navy is two sailors; The Gap is the gap between two stores”?Ø) and less gentle country bumpkin digs, many at the expense of the home ec teacher, Pam. Some of the jokes are mean-spirited while others are simply silly.

That being said, looking at the series with 2006 eyes, it’s not as un-funny?Ø as the critics back in its day alleged. The first few episodes are quite humorous, and there are definitely funny bits in each episode, such as the seventh, “Joe,” which finds Ellen searching for a decent cup of coffee. Ellen’s interactions with students were particularly well done, and the show would have benefited from more of them.

The other problem with this series concerns the characterizations of Mr. Munn, the principal, and Dot, Ellen’s mom. Mr. Munn was very happy to see Ellen in the first episode and encouraged her to come to work for him as a guidance counselor at the high school. There was fondness between the two characters, but in later episodes, he became almost an adversary for Ellen, sniping at her, and being generally unpleasant. There is no explanation for this change, so it seems off.

With Dot, it is unclear if her character is simply, well, dotty and eccentric, or if she has some kind of pre-dementia disorder. She’s forgetful, and sees things others don’t (like an ongoing joke about “Kitty,”?Ø whom Ellen hears about but never sees). Other times, Dot seems sharper than anyone, making cutting comments. The inconsistency in the writing of her character is a shame, since Cloris Leachman has a wonderful presence in this series and does a fine job with less than great material.

It would have been interesting to see what would have been done with this show had it been renewed. As of the eighteenth episode, Ellen was contemplating a move into her own place; would that have allowed her to date in future episodes? Would the P.E. teacher receive more air time? Would she encounter any homophobia?

As a DVD set, the video and audio for The Ellen Show: The Complete Season are incredibly clean and clear. There are no bonus features to speak of, other than the six episodes that CBS did not air. Viewers are given the option to view the series all at once or to select episodes by their titles. (Brief synopses of the episodes appear on the box.) There are no scene selection options, but the episodes themselves are short enough, this isn’t a huge problem. When viewing more than a few episodes in a row, the whistling which starts scenes after commercial breaks?Ø will undoubtedly become annoying, and the laugh track is much too loud. The entire DVD runs 399 minutes.

For fans of Ellen DeGeneres and those who enjoy quiet comedies with fun (and frank) nods to both lesbianism and pop culture, this two-DVD set is a must-purchase, and at $29.95, it’s affordable. Ellen DeGeneres is attractive, intelligent, funny, and she surrounds herself in this series with likable and affable characters portrayed by talented actors. If the material doesn’t live up to its potential, well, the same could be said for many a series, and in this one, it is truly a shame.

But here in 2006, with yet another upcoming television season in which the majority of lesbians you’ll see will be on reality shows, spending some time in Clark with Ellen, her family, and friends will provide some light, entertaining relief.

In between her nineties sitcom, Ellen, with its groundbreaking “Puppy Episode,” and her current, very successful eponymous daytime talk show, Ellen DeGeneres starred in a short-lived sitcom for CBS called The Ellen Show. Thirteen episodes aired between September 2001 and January 2002 before it was cancelled.

Viewers now have the opportunity to revisit this show and to see the remaining six episodes that CBS never aired, with the recent release of The Ellen Show: The Complete Series on DVD ($29.95, Sony Entertainment).

In The Ellen Show, DeGeneres, who also served as Executive Producer with series creators Carol Leifer and Mitchell Hurwitz, stars as Ellen Richmond, a Los Angeles dot-com executive who returns to her hard-to-find-on-a-map hometown of Clark. The pilot brings Ellen to Clark for “Ellen Days,” where she will receive recognition from the town for being a successful former resident. While there, she receives news that her company has lost its funding. Now a veteran of four dot com companies–and a recent breakup–Ellen decides she doesn’t have much to return to in L.A. and moves in with her mother and sister in Clark.

The first few episodes feature Ellen learning the routines of her family, getting reacquainted with a former teacher (now principal) at her old high school and Rusty, the guy she dated back then (and now a high school teacher), before deciding to take a job at the high school as a guidance counselor. Big fish returns to small pond jokes abound as do playful references to her sexuality.

Yes, that breakup Ellen refers to in the pilot episode was with a woman, making The Ellen Show the first television comedy to focus on a lesbian lead character from its inception. The fact that the character did just go through a breakup gives the series a convenient excuse to not deal with the dating issue, at least in these first eighteen episodes. We’ll never know if Ellen would have been allowed to date had the series been renewed, but it certainly wasn’t headed in that direction.

In the episodes that were filmed, Ellen’s lesbianism is not ignored. In the pilot, Mr. Munn, the high school principal, played by Martin Mull, proudly introduces Ellen to the only other lesbian he knows: the P.E. (natch) teacher, Bunny Hopstetter (Diane Delano). And Ellen’s mother (Cloris Leachman) is sympathetic about the breakup, giving Ellen a warm hug when she hears the news: “I’m so sorry, I liked her so–she had such nice teeth.”

The good news is that the majority of the eighteen episodes contain at least some passing reference to Ellen’s sexuality, from the Wonder Woman, Charlie’s Angels, and Billie Jean King posters in her old bedroom (“Didn’t have a clue, huh, Mom?” Ellen wonders aloud) to Ellen looking in the phonebook for some nightlife opportunities and remarking, “The closest they have is the Lebanese meat market.”

Most of these are fleeting, matter-of-fact jokes and comments, so no one could say, as some critics had accused with Ellen, that The Ellen Show has a “gay agenda”,

Not all references to lesbianism in The Ellen Show are comedic. In episode 12, “A Bird in the Hand,” the issue of family heirlooms arises, with its oft attendant assumption that the eldest daughter inherits such things upon her marriage. Ellen argues that this isn’t fair, if the eldest daughter, like herself, ends up not being the marrying kind. This same episode explores clothing choices for non-femme lesbians, with the acknowledgement that Ellen isn’t a skirt-and-sweater-set kind of gal. When she does try on such an outfit, Ellen remarks, “I feel like John Lithgow in The World According to Garp.”

Pop culture references such as this make this show a nostalgic delight, as do appearances by guest stars Mary Tyler Moore and Betty White (former co-castmates of Leachman’s on The Mary Tyler Moore show) and Maureen McCormick (Marcia on The Brady Bunch). “One for the Roadshow,” the final episode filmed, is an homage to the popular PBS series Antiques Roadshow.

Nods to DeGeneres’ first sitcom occur in episodes such as “Chain Reaction,”?Ø in which Ellen Richmond starts a petition drive to close down a chain restaurant, P.J. Knockers, modeled after Hooters; Ellen Morgan fought a similar battle with chain bookstores as an independent bookstore owner in Ellen. (Fans of DeGeneres’s dancing on her talk show will enjoy it when it occasionally happens on The Ellen Show.)

With ingredients like these, as well as the indisputable comedic talents of DeGeneres, Mull, Leachman, and the rest of the cast (Jim Gaffigan as Rusty, Emily Rutherfurd as sister Catherine, and Kerri Kenney as the home economics teacher), and the writing and creative direction of Carol Leifer (Seinfeld) and Mitchell Hurwitz (The Golden Girls and later, Arrested Development), The Ellen Show should have been a hit.

It wasn’t.

Viewers of the fall 2001 TV season weren’t particularly kind to debut comedies. In the early post-9/11 days, familiar favorites like Friends and Spin City provided comforting entertainment, while then-new dramas such as 24, Alias, and HBO’s Six Feet Under were captivating audiences who weren’t glued to news programs.

But the failure of The Ellen Show at that time probably had more to do with the fact that it just wasn’t as funny as it should have been with the creative talent it possessed. Much of the humor involves (mostly gentle) small town bashing (At a mall: “Here, Old Navy is two sailors; The Gap is the gap between two stores”?Ø) and less gentle country bumpkin digs, many at the expense of the home ec teacher, Pam. Some of the jokes are mean-spirited while others are simply silly.

That being said, looking at the series with 2006 eyes, it’s not as un-funny?Ø as the critics back in its day alleged. The first few episodes are quite humorous, and there are definitely funny bits in each episode, such as the seventh, “Joe,” which finds Ellen searching for a decent cup of coffee. Ellen’s interactions with students were particularly well done, and the show would have benefited from more of them.

The other problem with this series concerns the characterizations of Mr. Munn, the principal, and Dot, Ellen’s mom. Mr. Munn was very happy to see Ellen in the first episode and encouraged her to come to work for him as a guidance counselor at the high school. There was fondness between the two characters, but in later episodes, he became almost an adversary for Ellen, sniping at her, and being generally unpleasant. There is no explanation for this change, so it seems off.

With Dot, it is unclear if her character is simply, well, dotty and eccentric, or if she has some kind of pre-dementia disorder. She’s forgetful, and sees things others don’t (like an ongoing joke about “Kitty,”?Ø whom Ellen hears about but never sees). Other times, Dot seems sharper than anyone, making cutting comments. The inconsistency in the writing of her character is a shame, since Cloris Leachman has a wonderful presence in this series and does a fine job with less than great material.

It would have been interesting to see what would have been done with this show had it been renewed. As of the eighteenth episode, Ellen was contemplating a move into her own place; would that have allowed her to date in future episodes? Would the P.E. teacher receive more air time? Would she encounter any homophobia?

As a DVD set, the video and audio for The Ellen Show: The Complete Season are incredibly clean and clear. There are no bonus features to speak of, other than the six episodes that CBS did not air. Viewers are given the option to view the series all at once or to select episodes by their titles. (Brief synopses of the episodes appear on the box.) There are no scene selection options, but the episodes themselves are short enough, this isn’t a huge problem. When viewing more than a few episodes in a row, the whistling which starts scenes after commercial breaks?Ø will undoubtedly become annoying, and the laugh track is much too loud. The entire DVD runs 399 minutes.

For fans of Ellen DeGeneres and those who enjoy quiet comedies with fun (and frank) nods to both lesbianism and pop culture, this two-DVD set is a must-purchase, and at $29.95, it’s affordable. Ellen DeGeneres is attractive, intelligent, funny, and she surrounds herself in this series with likable and affable characters portrayed by talented actors. If the material doesn’t live up to its potential, well, the same could be said for many a series, and in this one, it is truly a shame.

But here in 2006, with yet another upcoming television season in which the majority of lesbians you’ll see will be on reality shows, spending some time in Clark with Ellen, her family, and friends will provide some light, entertaining relief.

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