Years:  2004, 2005, 2006, 2007
Genre:  TV series, comedy, sitcom
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Kevin James, Leah Remini, Patton Oswalt, Lou Ferrigno, Jerry Stiller, Victor Williams, Gary Valentine
Guest stars:  Tucker Carlson, Rampage Jackson, Burt Reynolds, Nicole Sullivan, Adam Sandler, Adam West, Robert Goulet, Huey Lewis, Kirstie Alley, Randy Couture
Creators:  David Litt, Michael J. Weithorn
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I like Kevin James and Jerry Stiller and PAtton Oswalt and the rest of the cast of King of Queens.  And I REALLY like Leah Remini, who is one of the hottest women alive and a terrific actress as well.  But then, this sitcom suffered simply because of that.  More than any other sitcom of the 90s and 2000s, this one really, really felt like a formula crammed into a box and spit out into mass production.

     I get that it’s politically correct to say that women are better than men.  That they are smarter and stronger and tougher and better looking and in every way superior.  It’s also very easy to get a laugh this way.  Oh, look at the poor stupid men!  Aren’t they adorably inept and generally terrible?  Ah, he’s going to try to fix the sink!  This will be so funny!  Well, to some people, I guess it is.  Lots of people, ’cause this show lasted nine seasons!

     But to me, it’s just implausible and sad.  This gorgeous, hot brilliant tough woman has inexplicably married a fat, sloppy, inept moron with very little discernible charm.  Imagine, just for a moment, that the situation were reversed.  Imagine watching a sitcom where, say, Brad Pitt was married to Susan Boyle.  And the whole show consisted of Susan Boyle wearing the same underwear for a week at a time, or forgetting Brad Pitt’s birthday because she stopped to eat a bucket of fudge.  How long do you think that would last?  Would it make it out of the boardroom at all?

     And so, with so many sitcoms of the 90s, we’re supposed to swallow this utterly inexplicable couple, and we’re supposed to laugh at the fact that Doug has to beg Carrie to be allowed to leave the house with the guys for a weekend.  Dude – you have no kids!  Why wouldn’t you be allowed to leave the house, unless she’s a heartless control freak harpie and you’re a spineless useless dishrag?  Oh – because it’s funnier that way.  I get it.

     The final season at last tried to do something about this obvious imbalance – it took this ludicrous relationship to its logical conclusion, as Carrie and Doug began contemplating divorce throughout Season Nine.  However, because the writers and creators of this show were as spineless and chicken and formulaic as Doug himself, they copped out with the big finale.  So sad.

“You got to mind your Shirleys!”
“Oh no!  I’m all up in your Shirleys!” 

Years:  2006, 2007
Genre:  TV series, garbage, comedy, sitcom
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Keesha Sharp, Khalil Khan, Golden Brooks, Persia White, Reggie Hayes, Tracee Ellis Ross, Richard T. Jones
Creators:  Mara Brock Akil, Kelsey Grammer
Run time:  7 hours 40 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment
Related reviews:  The Game, Season One, Girlfriends Fifth Season, Girlfriends Fourth Season

     I still hate Girlfriends.  I took a break from Season Six, and then thought – this IS a long running sitcom!  Maybe I should give it another chance.  Someone must like it.  Maybe I can figure this out.  But I can’t.  This is still a jokeless sitcom with an inexplicable laugh track, it still stars unpleasant characters who are, for the most part, unlikeable.  And it still misses as a drama, a comedy, a romance, and a TV series.  Monica is now a bigger character in the series, and is friends with Jo, but she is even more unlikeable than Mya and Darnell and William and Toni and Jo and the rest of them.  Why add another character who is even worse than the already bad ones?

     Toni (Jill Marie Jones) has left the show for Season Seven.  That’s not such a bad thing, because she was unlikeable as well.  However, in the first several episodes of this season, the other girls are making constant references to her.  Where’s Toni?  Why did Toni leave?  How much time has passed since Jo went to New Orleans to build homes for Habitat For Humanity that allowed all this stuff to happen including Toni leaving?  Jo spends the entire first episode going back to L.A. to re-connect with her best friend Toni, only to find out that she has left and they will likely never speak again.  Why bother?

     The writers on this program had to realize that this would make little sense.  On one level, I think it’s great that they didn’t just ignore the departure of a major cast member like so many sitcoms do.  And I like the fact that they didn’t come up with one of those easy-way-out explanations like she got hit by a bus and died.  But their constant references to her make it really obvious that they are really, really hoping that Jill Marie Jones returns to the show at some point.  Until then, it’s like they’re spinning their wheels a little.

     So what we get is a bunch of gold-diggers and leeches, loud and obnoxious women and cuckolded men, and not a lot of laughs.  And the one person who has been most reasonable, Jo, has apparently spent the last season being so awful herself that she has driven her best friend away forever.  So what reason is left to watch this show?  Not much, I think.