Everybody Does NOT Love Raymond
Ever watch the sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond"? It's a sitcom that ran from 1996 until this year (2005), starring Ray Romano as Raymond Barone.It's also a sitcom that I could rarely make myself watch more than about two minutes before it would start to drive me up a wall, and I'd have to shut it off. I know...the real question is, if I can't stand it, why would I bother turning it on? I don't know. I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment.
The series was about the Barone family - Ray and his wife Debra, Ray's brother Robert, their children Ally, Geoffrey, and Michael, and Ray's parents Frank and Marie.
Ray is a self absorbed, selfish, obnoxious character, who apparently everybody loves, although I never saw much evidence of that in the episodes I saw. His wife Debra is a lousy cook and a bit of a nag (but who wouldn't be a nag, married to a guy like Ray?
)His mother is a meddlesome, interfering hag who dominates wherever she goes, tries to tell Debra how to run her kitchen and her household. The father is just plain self absorbed, selfish and obnoxious...oh, wait...have we seen those character traits somewhere before?
Then there's the children. How many kids were there? Good question. Sadly, I had to go to imdb.com to look up how many children they had and what their names were...that should tell you something about the purpose of the children; they had no character, nothing by which they were made memorable...they were simply stage props on which plot elements were hinged.
And, of course, Robert...who was the only character in the series I actually liked at all. I suppose because he was the underdog, the one who was always the brunt of everyone's self absorbed cruelty. I root for people like that.
Anyway, they were rerunning the series finale last night, and I had the TV on, so I decided to watch it. I made it through the whole thing, and when it was done, realized another reason why I disliked this show so much...besides the constant cynical and cruel banter between husband and wife, mother and son, etc. etc.
There was - in the entire nine year span of this show - absolutely no character development. Each character is utterly stagnant, with no growth or change. Raymond Barone is exactly as stupidly self absorbed now as he was in 1996. Marie is no more nor no less meddlesome now, nor has she changed in any other significant ways.
In the series finale, Raymond almost dies, and his family freaks out, and realizes how much they would all miss him (goodness knows why
) and the series ends with a "touching moment" in which Ray and his wife tell each other that they "like each other". 
It dawned on me that, over nine years of this series, there has been absolutely no change, no development, no maturing of that relationship. It is exactly the same now as it was when they began. And the writers apparently decided they had to throw the audience a bone, make them believe that something had actually been accomplished during those nine years.
I was thinking about shows in which characters never develop or change. There are (and have been) many of them. The examples that came to mind first of all were Star Trek and Gilligan's Island. Mind you, I enjoyed both of those television series (well, Gilligan's Island a whole lot more than the original Star Trek series.
)I think the reason shows like Star Trek and Gilligan's Island could get away with having stagnant characters was that the series were less about character than they were about the adventures of the crew. So we can easily overlook the lack of growth in the characters, because we are so anxious to see what will happen on planet X, or how they're going to finally get off the island.
(If you're unsure what I mean about characters not developing and changing, think of this: remember the episode of Star Trek in which Captain Kirk has to let the woman he loves die? Well, in subsequent episodes, do you see Kirk as being any different than he was before? Now ask yourself this question: In real life, if that happened to me would I be changed by the situation?)
The problem with Everybody Loves Raymond is that it's not about circumstance and adventure...the series is (supposedly) all about the interactions of this family. And with a series in which nothing momentous happens except the family interactions, it seems peculiar that the children are so non-memorable, and that nothing ever changes in those family interactions, until the very last episode.
And I have to wonder...if they ended up producing more episodes, would these "changes" stick? Or would it be right back to the same old thing?
Everybody Loves Raymond? Not really.
Posted On Sep 13, 2005 at 6:04 AM
|
Doug's Random ThoughtsEverything from Soup to Nuts,And Maybe Even More! ABOUT ME Current PostsBlog Is Moving...Emergency Room Last Entry Join The Chorus Jeorge Sings A Hymn 
|