Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Men of a Certain Age

TNT Mondays 10pm
website

I finding this new series refreshing for several reasons:

1. It's just a show about life. No court rooms, not a sitcom, no forensics, no reality TV. You may say as there was "ThirtySomething" this is "45-50 Something." With so many teen to 20-something driven shows, it's good to know that TNT knows I'm out here.

2. It's about 3 guys about 45-50 years old navigating life. Just life. No special effects. Just a script and simple ordinary backdrops: work, home, restaurant, coffee shop etc. If "Seinfeld" weren't a shticky sitcom, it might look more like this.

3. The 3 actors aren't very "actor-looking." Scott Bakula, Ray Romano and Andre Braugher are very normal looking guys. It's realistic & comforting to see people on TV that look like people I might see in Indy. They don't look like actors who came up doing modeling gigs (even if they did). And that adds to the "real."

4. They have normal struggles: marriage, divorce, raising teenagers, significance, father junk--you know--just life. And they don't wrap up everything in an hour. Sometimes stuff just kind of hangs there---like life does.

5. It's great to see Ray Romano just be a guy and not a guy in a sitcom with a laugh track. He's real. He's believably quirky. He's also a producer of the show. Scott Bakula and Andre Braugher are equally real and don't come across as the actors they actually are--which is refreshing.

Tired of all the typical TV crap? Give this a shot--especially if you are a man or woman--of a certain age.

(It is rated "MA" for mature audiences.)

Peace.